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tiilwc^iBat <Ci)ition

THE WRITINGS OF
HENRY DAVID THOREAU

WITH BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTIONS
AND FULL INDEXES

IN TEN VOLUMES
VOLUME IX

-,'-•■

■"r

EXCURSIONS

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON. MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

CCbe niUnAtK ipTtriri, Camlmbor

.*.-^

^ii

AJX rights reserved.

/ '

>• • • _ • •

>l ••! .*. «- -••

• • • •» ••»•* ••• •

The Riverside Presa^ Cambridge, Mctu., U. 8. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.

CONTENTS

PAoa

Intboductoby Note vii

A Yankee in Canada 1

I. Concord to Montreal 8

II. Quebec and Montmorenci .... 24

III. St. Anne 49

IV. The Walk of Quebec 85

V. The Scenery of Quebec; and the River St.

Lawrence . 105

Natubal Histoby of Mabsachusetts . . . 127

A Walk to Wachusett 163

The Landlobd 187

•A WiNTEB Walk 199

'The Succession of Fobest Tbees .... 225

•Walking 251

Autumnal Tints 305

Wild Apples 356

Night and Moonlight 397

May Days 410

Days and Nights in Conoobd .... 438

464660

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The title given to this volume is the same
as that used in 1863 when, shortly after Tho-
reau's death, his sister collected for Messrs.
Ticknor & Fields a number of his fugitive
pieces and prefaced the volume with a biograph-
ical sketch by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The
contents of the two volumes are with a few
exceptions the same, the chief differences being
that Mr. Emerson's sketch precedes the final
volume of the series, and A Yankee in Can-
ada^ formerly published in a volume with Anti-
Slavery and Reform Papers^ is made here the
first in the series of Excursions,

Thoreau made this excursion with his friend
EUery Channing, and sent his narrative to Mr.
Greeley, who wrote him regarding it, March
18, 1852, "I shall get you some money for the
articles you sent me, though not immediately.
As to your long account of a Canadian tour,
I don't know. It looks unmanageable. Can't
you cut it into three or four, and omit all that
relates to time? The cities are described to
death, but I know you are at home with Nature,

viu INTRODUCTORY NOTE

and that sTie rarely and slowly changes. Break
this up, if you can, and I will try to have it
swallowed and digested." Thoreau appears to
have taken Greeley's advice, and the narrative
was divided into chapters. But after it had
been begun in Putnam's in January, 1853,
where it was entitled Excfursion to Canada^
the author and the editor, who appears from the
following letter to have been Mr. G. W. Cur-
tis, disagreed regarding the expediency of in-
cluding certain passages, and Thoreau withdrew
all after the third chapter. The letter is as
follows : —

New York, January 2, 1853.

Friend Thoreau. ... I am sorry you and
C. cannot agree so as to have your whole MS,
printed. It will be worth nothing elsewhere
after having partly appeared in Putnam! s. I
think it is a mistake to conceal the authorship
of the several articles, making them all (so to
speak) editorial ; but if that is done, don't you
see that the elimination of very flagrant heresies
(like your defiant Pantheism) becomes a neces-
sity? If you had withdrawn your MS. on ac-
count of the abominable misprints in the first
number, your ground would have been far more
tenable. However, do what you will. Yours,

Horace Greeley.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE ix

Natural History of Massachusetts was con-
tributed to The DiaU July, 1842, nominally
as a review of a recent state report. A Walk
to Wachusett was printed in Hie Boston Mis-
cellany^ 1843. Mr. Sanborn, in his volume on
Thoreau, prints a very interesting letter written
by Margaret Fuller in 1841, in criticism of ttt
verses which stand near the beginning of the
paper offered at that time for publication in
77ie Dial. The Landlord was printed in ITie
Democratic Seview for October, 1843. A Win-
ter Walk appeared in The Dial in the same
month and year. Emerson in a letter to Tho-
reau, September 8, 1843, says : " I mean to send
the Winter^ s Walk to the printer to-morrow for
The Dial. I had some hesitation about it, not-
withstanding its faithful observation and its
fine sketches of the pickerel-fisher and of the
woodchopper, on account of mannerism^ an old
charge of mine, — as if, by attention, one could
get the trick of the rhetoric; for example, to
call a cold place sultry, a solitude public, a wil-
derness domestic (a favorite word), and in the
woods to insult over cities, armies, etc. By
pretty free omissions, however, I have removed
my principal objections." The address, The
Succession of Forest Trees^ was printed first
in ITie New York Weeldy Tribune^ October 6,

X INTRODUCTORY NOTE

1860, and was perhaps the latest of his writings
which Thoreau saw in print.

After his death the interest which had already
been growing was quickened by the successive
publication in The Atlantic Monthly in 1862
of Autumnal Tints (October), Wild Apples
(Kovember), and Night and Moonlight (Novem-
ber, 1863). The last named appeared just be-
fore the publication of the volume Excursions
which collected the several papers, but, as Chan-
ning remarks, though the contents of the volume
had all been printed before, and some had been
used also as lectures, they "are really descrip-
tions drawn from his journals."

May Days has appeared before only in The
Atlantic for May, 1878. Days and Nights in
Concord was published in Scrihner^s Monthly^
September, 1878. The time of the year covered
by these last named extracts is that of August
and September, and falls for the most part be-
tween the two volumes Summer and Autumn,
Other extracts from the journal occur in a
somewhat mosaic form in Thoreau^ the Poet
Naturalist^ by W. EUery Channing.

A YANKEE IN CANADA

**New Ex^^Umd is by some afOrmed to be an idand, bounded on the
north with the River Canada (so called from Monsieur Cane)." — Jossb-
lth'8 Rabxtcbs.

Ajid still older, in Thomas Morton's " New English Canaan," published
in 1632, it is said, on pi^e 97, " From this Lake [Erocoise] Northwards is
derived the famous Biver of Canada, so named, of Monsier de Cane, a
French Lord, who first planted a Colony of French in America."

A YANKEE IN CANADA

CHAPTER I

CONCORD TO MONTREAL

I FEAR that I have not got much to say about
Canada, not having seen much ; what I got by
going to Canada was a cold. I left Concord,
Massachusetts, Wednesday morning, September
25th, 1850, for Quebec. Fare, seven dollars
there and back ; distance from Boston, five hun-
dred and ten miles ; being obliged to leave Mon-
treal on the return as soon as Friday, October
4th, or within ten days. I will not stop to tell
the reader the names of my fellow-travelers;
there were said to be fifteen hundred of them.
I wished only to be set down in Canada, and
take one honest walk there as I might in Con-
cord woods of an afternoon.

The country was new to me beyond Fitchburg.
In Ashburnham and ^fterward, as we were
whirled rapidly along, I noticed the woodbine
{Ampdopsis quinquefolia\ its leaves now
changed, for the most part on dead trees, drap-
ing them like a red scarf. It was a little excit-

• •

• " • • •• • ••

• • • .• ••• .•«•••• • • • •

4 A YANKEE IN CANADA

ing, suggesting bloodshed, or at least a military
life, like an epaidet or sash, as if it were dyed
with the blood of the trees whose wounds it was
inadequate to stanch. For now the bloody au-
tumn was come, and an Indian warfare was
waged through the forest. These military trees
appeared very numerous, for our rapid progress
connected those that were even some miles
apart. Does the woodbine prefer the elm?
The first view of Monadnock was obtained five
or six miles this side of Fitzwilliam, but nearest
and best at Troy and beyond. Then there were
the Troy cuts and embankments. Keene Street
strikes the traveler favorably, it is so wide,
level, straight, and long. I have heard one of
my relatives, who was born and bred there, say
that you could see a chicken run across it a mile
off. I have also been told that when this town
was settled they laid out a street four rods wide,
but at a subsequent meeting of the proprietors
one rose and remarked, "We have plenty of
land, why not make the street eight rods wide?
and so they voted that it should be eight rods
wide, and the town is known far and near for
its handsome street. It was a cheap way of se-
curing comfort, as well as fame, and I wish that
all new towns would take pattern from this. It
is best to lay our plans widely in youth, for then
land is cheap, and it is but too easy to contract

CONCORD TO MONTREAL 6

our views afterward. Youths so laid out, with
broad avenues and parks, that they may make
handsome and liberal old men! Show me a
youth whose mind is like some Washington city
of magnificent distances, prepared for the most
remotely successful and glorious life after all,
when those spaces shall be built over and the
idea of the founder be realized. I trust that
every New England boy will begin by laying
out a Keene Street through his head, eight rods
wide. I know one such Washington city of a
man, whose lots as yet are only surveyed and
staked out, and, except a cluster of shanties here
and there, only the Capitol stands there for all
structures, and any day you may see from afar
his princely idea borne coachwise along the
spacious but yet empty avenues. Keene is built
on a remarkably large and level interval, like
the bed of a lake, and the surrounding hiUs,
which are remote from its street, must afford
some good walks. The scenery of mountain
towns is commonly too much crowded. A town
which is built on a plain of some extent, with
an open horizon, and surrounded by hills at a
distance, affords the best walks and views.

As we travel iBprthwest up the country, sugar-
maples, beeches, birches, hemlocks, spruce, but-
ternuts, and ash trees prevail more and more.
To the rapid traveler the number of elms in a

6 A YANKEE IN CANADA

town is the measure of its civility. One man
in the cars has a bottle fuU of some liquor.
The whole company smile whenever it is exhib-
ited. I find no difficulty in containing myself.
The Westmoreland coimtry looked attractive.
I heard a passenger giving the very obvious de-
rivation of this name, West-more-land, as if it
were purely American, and he had made a dis-
covery; but I thought of "my cousin Westmore-
land " in England. Every one will remember
the approach to Bellows Falls, under a high cliff
which rises from the Connecticut. I was disap-
pointed in the size of the river here ; it appeared
shrunk to a mere mountain stream. The water
was evidently very low. The rivers which we
had crossed this forenoon possessed more of the
character of mountain streams than those in the
vicinity of Concord, and I was surprised to see
everywhere traces of recent freshets, which had
carried away bridges and injured the railroad,
though I had heard nothing of it. In Ludlow,
Mount Holly, and beyond, there is interesting
mountain scenery, not rugged and stupendous,
but such as you could easily ramble over, —
long, narrow, mountain vales through which to
see the horizon. You are in the midst of the
Green Mountains. A few more elevated blue
peaks are seen from the neighborhood of Mount
Holly, perhaps Killington Peak is one. Some-

CONCORD TO MONTREAL 7

times, as on the A^^stem Railroad, you are
whirled over mountainous embankments, from
which the scared horses in the valleys appear
diminished to hounds. All the hills blush; I
think that autumn must be the best season to
journey over even the Green Mountains. You
frequently exclaim to yourself, what red maples !
The sugar-maple is not so red. You see some
of the latter with rosy spots or cheeks only,
blushing on one side like fruit, while all the rest
of the tree is green, proving either some partial-
ity in the light or frosts, or some prematurity in
particular branches. Tall and slender ash-
trees, whose foliage is turned to a dark mulberry
color, are frequent. The butternut, which is a
remarkably spreading tree, is turned completely
yellow, thus proving its relation to the hicko-
ries. I was also struck by the bright yellow
tints of the yellow birch. The sugar-maple is
remarkable for its clean ankle. The groves of
these trees looked like vast forest sheds, their
branches stopping short at a uniform height,
four or five feet from the ground, like eaves, as
if they had been trimmed by art, so that you
could look under and through the whole grove
with its leafy canopy, as under a tent whose cur-
tain is raised.

As you approach Lake Champlain you begin
to see the New York mountains. The first view

8 A YANKEE IN CANADA

of the Lake at Vergennes is impressive, butifei vi
rather from association than from any peculiar-rfwt ^
ity in the scenery. It lies there so small (not wto* I
appearing in that proportion to the width of theinwan-
State that it does on the map), but beautifully tfo un-
quiet, like a picture of the Lake of Lucerne oni, in ^
a music-box, where you trace the name, of Lu-, »4 **
ceme among the foliage; far more ideal thannintfi^
ever it looked on the map. It does not say,3e<b or
"Here I am. Lake Champlain," as the conductor-tops w
might for it, but having studied the geographyressiott.
thirty years, you crossed over a hill one after- two or
noon and beheld it. But it is only a glimpse rYort
that you get here. At Burlington you rush to ttcied
a wharf and go on board a steamboat, two hun- bkW
dred and thirty-two miles from Boston. We y-foor
left Concord at twenty minutes before eight in si we
the morning, and were in Burlington about six ise of
at night, but too late to see the lake. We got b-B^
our first fair view of the lake at dawn, just be- i ^
fore reaching Plattsburg, and saw blue ranges new
of mountains on either hand, in New York and r ife
in Vermont, the former especially grand. A j^
few white schooners, like gulls, were seen in the : tb«
distance, for it is not waste and solitary like a « to
lake in Tartary; but it was such a view as ntle-
leaves not much to be said; indeed, I have post- yoa
poned Lake Champlain to another day. tts»

The oldest reference to these waters that I ^

CONCORD TO MONTREAL 11

biE here and there a solid, red-faced, burly-looking

m\ Englishman, a little pursy perhaps, who made

I us ashamed of ourselves and our thin and ner-
ii vous countrymen, — a grandf atherly personage,
jfei, at home in his great-coat, who looked as if he
{1^ might be a stage proprietor, certainly a railroad
It director, and knew, or had a right to know,
i:( when the cars did start. Then there were two
l. or three pale-faced, black-eyed, loquacious

II Canadian French gentlemen there, shrugging
d their shoulders ; pitted as if they had all had the
^ small-pox. In the mean while some soldiers,
1^ red-coats, belonging to the barracks near by,
^y were turned out to be drilled. At every impor*
^, taut point in our route the soldiers showed them-
^ selves ready for us; though they were evidently
^ rather raw recruits here, they manoeuvred far
\ better than our soldiers ; yet, as usual, I heard
^ some Yankees talk as if they were no great
1^ shakes, and they had seen the Acton Blues ma-
il nceuvre as well. The officers spoke sharply to
|- them, and appeared to be doing their part thor-
^ oughly. I heard one suddenly coming to the
\ rear, exclaim, ^'Michael Donouy, take his
^ name ! " though I could not see what the latter
^. did or omitted to do. It was ^whispered that
L Michael Donouy would have to suffer for that.
I I heard some of our party discussing the possi-
i bility of their driving these troops off the field

12 A YANKEE IN CANADA

with their umbrellas. I thought that the Yankee,
though undisciplined, had this advantage at
least, that he especially is a man who, every-
where and under all circumstances, is fully re-
solved to better his condition essentially, and
therefore he could aff oi*d to be beaten at first ;
while the virtue of the Irishman, and to a great
extent the Englishman, consists in merely main-
taining his ground or condition. The Canadians
here, a rather poor-looking race, clad in gray
homespun, which gave them the appearance of
being covered with dust, were riding about in
caleches and small one-horse carts called cha-
rettes. The Yankees assumed that all the riders
were racing, or at least exhibiting the paces of
their horses, and saluted them accordingly. We
saw but little of the village here, for nobody
could tell us when the cars would start; that was
kept a profound secret, perhaps for political
reasons ; and therefore we were tied to our seats.
The inhabitants of St. John's and vicinity are
described by an English traveler as " singularly
unprepossessing," and before completing his pe-
riod he adds, "besides, they are generally very
much disaffected to the British crown." I sus-
pect that that "besides " should have been a be-
cause.

At length, about noon, the cars began to roll
towards La Prairie. The whole distance of fif-

CONCORD TO MONTREAL 13

teen miles was over a remarkably level country,
resembling a Western prairie, with the moun-
tains about Chambly visible in the northeast.
This novel but monotonous scenery was excit-
ing. At La Prairie we first took notice of the
tinned roofs, but above all of the St. Lawrence,
which looked like a lake ; in fact it is consider-
ably expanded here; it was nine miles across
diagonally to Montreal. Mount Koyal in the
rear of the city, and the island of St. Helen's
opposite to it, were now conspicuous. We
could also see the Sault St. Louis about five
miles up the river, and the Sault Norman still
farther eastward. The former are described
as the most considerable rapids in the St. Law-
rence ; but we could see merely a gleam of light
there as from a cobweb in the sun. Soon the
city of Montreal was discovered with its tin'
roofs shining afar. Their reflections fell on the
eye like a clash of cymbals on the ear. Above
all the church of Notre Dame was conspicuous,
and anon the Bonsecours market-house, occupy-
ing a commanding position on the quay, in the
rear of the shipping. This city makes the more
favorable impression from being approached by
water, and also being built of stone, a gray
limestone found on the island. Here, after
traveling directly inland the whole breadth of
New England, we had struck upon a city's har-

14 A YANKEE IN CANADA

bor, — it made on me the impression of a sea-
port, — to which ships of six hundred tons can
ascend, and where vessels drawing fifteen feet
lie close to the wharf, five hundred and forty
miles from the Gulf; the St. Lawrence being
here two miles wide. There was a great crowd
assembled on the ferry-boat wharf and on the
quay to receive the Yankees, and flags of all
colors were streaming from the vessels to cele-
brate their arrival. When the gun was fired,
the gentry hurrahed again and again, and then
the Canadian caleche-drivers, who were most
interested in the matter, and who, I perceived,
were separated from ihe former by a fence, hur-
rahed their welcome ; first the broadcloth, then
the homespun.

It was early in the afternoon when we stepped
ashore. With a single companion, I soon found
my way to the church of Notre Dame. I saw
that it was of great size and signified something.
It is said to be the largest ecclesiastical struc-
ture in North America, and can seat ten thou-
sand. It is two hundred and fifty-five and a
half feet long, and the groined ceiling is eighty
feet above your head. The Catholic are the
only churches which I have seen worth remem-
bering, which are not almost wholly profane.
I do not speak only of the rich and splendid like
this, but of the humblest of them as well. Com-

CONCORD TO MONTREAL 15

ing from the hurrahing mob and the rattling
carriages, we pushed aside the listed door of
this church, and found ourselves instantly in
an atmosphere which might be sacred to thought
and religion, if one had any. There sat one or
two women who had stolen a moment from the
concerns of the day, as they were passing; but,
if there had been fifty people there, it would
still have been the most solitary place imagina-
ble. They did not look up at us, nor did one
regard another. We walked softly down the
broad aisle with our hats in our hands. Pres-
ently came in a troop of Canadiaus, in their
homespun, who had come to the city in the boat
with us, and one and all kneeled down in the
aisle before the high altar to their devotions,
somewhat awkwardly, as cattle prepare to lie
down, and there we left them. As if you were
to catch some farmer's sons from Marlboro,
come to cattle-show, silently kneeling in Con-
cord meeting-house some Wednesday ! Would
there not soon be a mob peeping in at the win-
dows? It is true, these Soman Catholics,
priests and all, impress me as a people who have
fallen far behind the significance of their sym-
bols. It is as if an ox had strayed into a church
and were trying to bethink himself. Neverthe-
less, they are capable of reverence; but we
Yankees are a people in whom this sentiment

16 A YANKEE IN CANADA

has nearly died out, and in this respect we can-
not bethink ourselves even as oxen. I did not
mind the pictures nor the candles, whether tal-
low or tin. Those of the former which I looked
at appeared tawdry. It matters little to me
whether the pictures are by a neophyte of the
Algonquin or the Italian tribe. But I was im-
pressed by the quiet, religious atmosphere of the
place. It was a great cave in the midst of a
city; and what were the altars and the tinsel
but the sparkling stalactics, into which you en-
tered in a moment, and where the still atmo-
sphere and the sombre light disposed to serious
and profitable thought ? Such a cave at hand,
which you can enter any day, is worth a thou-
sand of our churches which are open only Sun-
days, — hardly long enough for an airing, —
and then filled with a bustling congregation, —
a church where the priest is the least part,
where you do your own preaching, where the
universe preaches to you and can be heard. I
am not sure but this Catholic religion would be
an admirable one if the priest were quite
omitted. I think that I might go to church
myself sometimes some Monday, if I lived in a
city where there was such a one to go to. In
Concord, to be sure, we do not need such.
Our forests are such a church, far grander and
more sacred. We dare not leave our meeting-

CONCORD TO MONTREAL 17

houses open for fear they would be profaned.
Such a cave, such a shrine, in one of our groves,
for instance, how long would it be respected?
for what purposes would it be entered, by such
baboons as we are? I think of its value not
only to religion, but to philosophy and to poe-
try ; besides a reading-room, to have a thinking-
room in every city! Perchance the time will
come when every house even will have not only
its sleeping-rooms, and dining-room-, and talk-
ing-room or parlor, but its thinking-room also,
and the architects wiU put it into their plans.
Let it be furnished and ornamented with what-
ever conduces to serious and creative thought.
I should not object to the holy water, or any
other simple symbol, if it were consecrated by
the imagination of the worshipers.

I heard that some Yankees bet that the can-
dles were not wax, but tin. A European as-
sured them that they were wax; but, inquiring
of the sexton, he was surprised to learn that
they were tin filled with oil. The church was
too poor to afford wax. As for the Protestant
churches, here or elsewhere, they did not inter-
est me, for it is only as caves that churches in-
terest me at all, and in that respect they were
inferior.

Montreal makes the impression of a larger
city than you had expected to find, though you

18 A YANKEE IN CANADA

may have heard that it contains nearly sixty
thousand inhabitants. In the newer parts, it
appeared to be growing fast like a small New
York, and to be considerably Americanized.
The names of the squares reminded you of
Paris, — the Champ de Mars, the Place
d'Armes, and others, and you felt ^.s if a
French revolution might break out any moment.
Glimpses of Mount Royal rising behind the
town, and the names of some streets in that di-
rection, make one think of Edinburgh. That
hill sets off this city wonderfully. I inquired
at a principal bookstore for books published in
Montreal. They said that there were none but
school-books and the like ; they got their books
from the States. From time to time we met a
priest in the streets, for they are distinguished
by their dress, like the dvU police. Like cler-
gymen generally, with or without the gown, they
made on us the impression of effeminacy. We
also met some Sisters of Charity, dressed in
black, with Shaker-shaped black bonnets and
crosses, and cadaverous faces, who looked as if
they had almost cried their eyes out, their com-
plexions parboiled with scalding tears ; insulting
the daylight by their presence, having taken an
oath not to smile. By cadaverous I mean that
their faces were like the faces of those who have
been dead and buried for a year, and then im-

CONCORD TO MONTREAL 19

tombed, with the life's grief upon them, and
yet, for some unaccountable reason, the process
of decay arrested.

*'*' Trath never fails her servant, sir, nor leaves him
With the day's shame upon him."

They waited demurely on the sidewalk while
a truck laden with raisins was driven in at the
seminary of St. Sulpice, never once lifting their
eyes from the ground.

The soldier here, as everywhere in Canada,
appeared to be put forward, and by his best
foot. They were in the proportion of the sol-
diers to the laborers in an African ant-hill.
The inhabitants evidently rely on them in a
great measure for music and entertainment.
You would meet with them pacing back and
forth before some guard-house or passage-way,
guarding, regarding, and disregarding all kinds
of law by turns, apparently for the sake of the
discipline to themselves, and not because it was
important to exclude anybody from entering
that way. They reminded me of the men who
are paid for piling up bricks and then throwing
them down again. On every prominent ledge
you could see England's hands holding the Can-
adas, and I judged by the redness of her
knuckles that she would soon have to let go.
In the rear of such a guard-house, in a large
graveled square or parade groimd, called the

20 A YANKEE IN CANADA

Champ de Mars, we saw a large body of soldiers
being drilled, we being as yet the only specta-
tors. But they did not appear to notice us any
more than the devotees in the church, but were
seemingly as indifferent to .fewness of spectators
as the phenomena of nature are, whatever they
might have been thinking under their helmets
of the Yankees that were to oome. Each man
wore white kid gloves. It was one of the most
interesting sights which I saw in Canada. The
problem appeared to be how to smooth down all
individual protuberances or idiosyncrasies, and
make a thousand men move as one man, ani-
mated by one central will ; and there was some
approach to success. They obeyed the signals
of a commander who stood at a great distance,
wand in hand ; and the precision, and prompt-
ness, and harmony of their movements could not
easily have been matched. The harmony was
far more remarkable than that of any choir or
band, and obtained, no doubt, at a greater cost.
They made on me the impression, not of many
individuals, but of one vast centipede of a man,
good for all sorts of pulling down ; and why not
then for some kinds of building up? If men
could combine thus earnestly, and patiently,
and harmoniously to some really worthy end,
what might they not accomplish? They now
put their hands, and partially perchance their

CONCORD TO MONTREAL 21

heads together, and the result is that they are
the imperfect tools of an imperfect and tyranni-
cal government. But if they could put their
hands and heads and hearts and all together,
such a cooperation and harmony would be the
very end and success for which government now
exists in vain, —a government, a^ it were, not
only with tools, but stock to trade with.

I was obliged to frame some sentences that
sounded like French in order to deal with the
market-women, who, for the most part, cannot
speak English. According to the guide-book
the relative population of this city stands nearly
thus: two fifths are French Canadian; nearly
one fifth British Canadian; one and a half fifth
English, Irish, and Scotch; somewhat less than
one half fifth Germans, United States people,
and others. I saw nothing like pie for sale,
and no good cake to put in my bundle, such as
you can easily find in our towns, but plenty of
fair-looking apples, for which Montreal Island
is celebrated, and also pears, cheaper, and I
thought better than ours, and peaches, which,
though they were probably brought from the
South, were as cheap as they commonly are with
us. So imperative is the law of demand and
supply that, as 1 have been told, the market of
Montreal is sometimes supplied with green ap-
ples from the State of New York some weeks

(

22 A YANKEE IN CANADA

even before they are ripe in the latter place. I
saw here the spruce wax which the Canadians
chew, done up in little silvered papers, a penny
a roll; also a small and shriveled fruit which
they called cerises mixed with many little stems
somewhat like raisins, but I soon returned what
I had bought, finding them rather insipid, only
putting a sample in my pocket. Since my re-
turn, I find on comparison that it is the fruit of
the sweet viburnum ( Vihiimum lentago), which
with us rarely holds on till it is ripe.

I stood on the deck of the steamer John
Munn, late in the afternoon, when the second
and third ferry-boats arrived from La Prairie,
bringing the remainder of the Yankees. I
never saw so many caleches, cabs, charettes, and
similar vehicles collected before, and doubt if
New York could easily furnish more. The
handsome and substantial stone quay, which
stretches a mile along the river-side, and pro-
tects the street from the ice, was thronged with
the citizens who had turned out on foot and in
carriages to welcome or to behold the Yankees.
It was interesting to see the caleche drivers dash
up and down the slope of the quay with their
active little horses. They drive much faster
than in our cities. I have been told that some
of them come nine miles into the city every
morning and return every night, without chang-

CONCORD TO MONTREAL 23

ing their horses during the day. In the midst
of the crowd of carts, I observed one deep one
loaded with sheep with their legs tied together,
and their bodies piled one upon another, as if
the driver had forgotten that thejr were sheep
and not yet mutton. A sight, I trust, peculiar
to Canada, though I fear that it is not.

CHAPTER II

QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI

About six o'clock we started for Quebec, one
hundred and eighty miles distant by the river ;
gliding past Longueil and Boucherville on the
right, and Pointe avx Trembles^ "so called
from having been originally covered with as-
pens," and Bout de Vlsle^ or the end of the
island, on the left. I repeat these names not
merely for want of more substantial facts to
record, but because they sounded singularly
poetic to my ears. There certainly was no lie
in them. They suggested that some simple,
and, perchance, heroic human life might have
transpired there. There is all the poetry in the
world in a name. It is a poem which the mass
of men hear and read. What is poetry in the
conmion sense, but a string of such jingling
names? I want nothing better than a good
word. The name of a thing may easily be more
than the thing itself to me. Inexpressibly beau-
tiful appears the recognition by man of the least
natural fact, and the allying his life to it. All
the world reiterating this slender truth, that as-

QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI 25

pens once grew there; and the swift inference
is, that men were there to see them. And so it
would be with the names of our native and
neighboring villages, if we had not profaned
them.

The daylight now failed us, and we went be-
low ; but I endeavored to console myself for be-
ing obliged to make this voyage by night, by
thinking that I did not lose a great deal, the
shores being low and rather imattractive, and
that the river itseH was much the more interest-
ing object. I heard something in the night
about the boat being at William Henry, Three
Sivers, and in the Richelieu Rapids, but I was
still where I had been when I lost sight of
Pointe avx Trembles. To hear a man who has
been waked up at midnight in the cabin of a
steamboat, inquiring, "Waiter, where are we
now? " is as if, at any moment of the earth's
revolution round the sun, or of the system round
its centre, one were to raise himself up and in-
quire of one of the deck hands, "Where are we
now?"

I went on deck at daybreak, when we were
thirty or forty miles above Quebec. The banks
were now higher and more interesting. There
was an "uninterrupted succession of white-
washed cottages," on each side of the river.
This is what every traveler tells. But it is not

26 A YANKEE IN CANADA

to be taken as an evidence of the populousness
of the country in general, hardly even of the
river banks. They have presented a similar
appearance for a hundred years. The Swedish
traveler and naturalist, Kalm, who descended
the river in 1749, says, "It could really be
called a village, beginning at Montreal and end-
ing at Quebec, which is a distance of more than
.one hundred and eighty miles; for the farm-
houses are never above five arpents, and some-
times but three asunder, a few places excepted."
Even in 1684 Hontan said that the houses were
not more than a gunshot apart at most. Ere-
long we passed Cape Rouge, eight miles above
Quebec, the mouth of the Chaudiere on the op-
posite or south side ; New Liverpool Cove with
its lumber rafts and some shipping ; then Sillery
and Wolfe's Cove and the Heights of Abraham
on the north, with now a view of Cape Dia-
mond, and the citadel in front. The approach
to Quebec was very imposing. It was about six
o'clock in the morning when we arrived. There
is but a single street under the cliff on the south
side of the cape, which was made by blasting
the rocks and filling up the river. Three-story
houses did not rise more than one fifth or one
sixth the way up the nearly perpendicular rock,
whose summit is three hundred and forty-five
feet above the water. We saw, as we glided

QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI 27

past, the sign on the side of the precipice, part
way up, pointing to the spot where Montgomery
was killed in 1775. Formerly it was the custom
for those who went to Quebec for the first time
to be ducked, or else pay a fine. Not even the
Governor General escaped. But we were too
manv to be ducked, even if the custom had not
been abolished.^

Here we were, in the harbor of Quebec, still
three hundred and sixty miles from the mouth
of the St. Lawrence, in a basin two miles
across, where the greatest depth is twenty-eight
fathoms, and though the water is fresh, the tide
rises seventeen to twenty-four feet, — a harbor
"large and deep enough," says a British trav-
eler, "to hold the English navy." I may as
well state that, in 1844, the county of Quebec
contained about forty -five thousand inhabitants
(the city and suburbs having about forty-three
thousand); about twenty-eight thousand being
Canadians of French origin; eight thousand
British; over seven thousand natives of Ireland;

^ Hierosme Lalemant says in 1648, in his relation, he heing
Superior : " All those who come to New France know well
enough the mountain of Notre Dame, hecause the pilots and
sailors, heing arrived at that part of the Great River which is
opposite to those high mountains, haptize ordinarily for sport
the' new passengers, if they do not tnrn aside hy some present
the inundation of this haptism which one makes flow plenti-
fully on their heads."

28 A YANKEE IN CANADA

one thousand five hundred natives of England;
the rest Scotch and others. Thirty-six thou-
sand belong to the Church of Rome.

Separating ourselves from the crowd, we
walked up a narrow street, thence ascended by
some wooden steps, called the Break-neck
Stairs, into another steep, narrow, and zigzag
street, blasted through the rock, which last led
through a low, massive, stone portal, called Pres-
cott Gate, the principal thoroughfare into the
Upper Town. This passage was defended by
cannon, with a guard-house over it, a sentinel
at his post, and other soldiers at hand ready to
relieve him. I rubbed my eyes to be sure that
I was in the nineteenth century, and was not
entering one of those portals which isometimes
adorn the frontispieces of new editions of old
black-letter voliunes. I thought it would be a
good place to read Froissart's Chronicles. It
was such a reminiscence of the Middle Ages
as Scott's novels. Men apparently dwelt there
for security ! Peace be unto them ! As if the
inhabitants of New York were to go over to
Castle William to live ! What a place it must
be to bring up children! Being safe through
the gate we naturally took the street which was
steepest, and after a few turns found ourselves
on the Durham Terrace, a wooden platform on
the site of the old castle of St. Louis, still one

QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI 29

hundred and fifteen feet below the summit of
the citadel, overlooking the Lower Town, the
wharf where we had landed, the harbor, the
Isle of Orleans, and the river and surrounding
country to a great distance. It was literally a
splendid view. We could see six or seven
miles distant, in the northeast, an indentation
in the lofty shore of the northern channel, ap-
parently on one side of the harbor, which marked
the mouth of the Montmorenci, whose celebrated
fall was only a few rods in the rear.

At a shoe-shop, whither we were directed for
this purpose, we got some of our American
money changed into English. I found that
American hard money would have answered as
well, excepting cents, which fell very fast before
their pennies, it taking two of the former to
make one of the latter, and often the penny,
which had cost us two cents, did us the service
of one cent only. Moreover, our robust cents
were compelled to meet on even terms a crew of
vile half -penny tokens, and bung-town coppers,
which had more brass in their composition, and
so perchance made their way in the world.
Wishing to get into the citadel, we were di-
rected to the Jesuits' Barracks, — a good part
of the public buildings here are barracks, — to
get a pass of the Town Major. We did not
heed the sentries at the gate, nor did they us,

30 A YANKEE IN CANADA

and what under the sun they were placed there
for, unless to hinder a free circulation of the air,
was not apparent. There we saw soldiers eat*
ing their breakfasts in their mess-room, from
bare wooden tables in camp fashion. We were
continually meeting with soldiers in the streets,
carrying funny little tin pails of all shapes, even
semicircular, as if made to pack conveniently.
I supposed that they contained their dinners, —
so many slices of bread and butter to each, per-
chance. Sometimes they were carrying some
kind of military chest on a sort of bier or hand-
barrow, with a springy, undulating, military
step, all passengers giving way to them, even
the charette drivers stopping for them to pass,
— as if the battle were being lost from an inade-
quate supply of powder. There was a regiment
of Highlanders, and, as I understood, of Royal
Irish, in the city; and by this time there was a
regiment of Yankees also. I had already ob-
served, looking up even from the water, the
head and shoulders of some General Poniatow-
sky, with an enormous cocked hat and gun,
peering over the roof of a house, away up where
the chimney caps commonly are with us, as it
were a caricature of war and military awf ulness ;
but I had not gone far up St. Louis Street be-
fore my riddle was solved, by the apparition of
a real live Highlander under a cocked hat, and

QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI 31

with his knees out, standing and marching sen-
tinel on the ramparts, between St. Louis and
St. John's Gate. (It must be a holy war that
is waged there.) We stood close by without
fear and looked at him. His legs were some-
what tanned, and the hair had begun to grow
on them, as some of our wise men predict that
it will in such cases, but I did not think they
were remarkable in any respect. Notwithstand-
ing all his warlike gear, when I inquired of him
the way to the Plains of Abraham, he could not
answer me without betraying some bashf ulness
through his broad Scotch. Soon after, we
passed another of these creatures standing sen-
try at the St. Louis Gate, who let us go by
without shooting us, or even demanding the
countersign. We then began to go through the
gate, which was so thick and tunnel-like, as to
remind me of those lines in Claudian's Old
Man of Verona, about the getting out of the
gate being the greater part of a journey ; — as
you might imagine yourself crawling through an
architectural vignette at the end of a black-let-
ter volume. We were then reminded that we
had been in a fortress, from which we emerged
by numerous zigzags in a ditch-like road, going
a considerable distance to advance a few rods,
where they could have shot us two or three times
over, if their minds had been disposed as their

32 A YANKEE IN CANADA

guns were. The greatest, or rather the most
prominent, part of this city was constructed
with the design to offer the deadest resistaoice
to leaden and iron missiles that might be cast
against it. But it is a remarkable meteorologi-
cal and psychological fact, that it is rarely
known to rain lead wjth much violence, except
on places so constructed. Keeping on about a
mile we came to the Plains of Abraham, — for
having got through with the Saints, we came
next to the Patriarchs. Here the Highland
regiment was being reviewed, whUe the band
stood on one side and played, - methinks it was
Z/a Claire Fontaine^ the national air of the
Canadian French. This is the site where a real
battle once took place, to commemorate which
they have had a sham fight here almost every
day since. The Highlanders manoeuvred very
well, and if the precision of their movements
wa3 less remarkable, they did not appear so
stiffly erect as the English or Royal Irish, but
had a more elastic and graceful gait, like a herd
of their own red deer, or as if accustomed to
stepping down the sides of mountains. But
they made a sad impression on the whole, for it
was obvious that all true manhood was in the
process of being drilled out of them. I have no.
doubt that soldiers well drilled are, as a class,
peculiarly destitute of originality and indepen-

QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI 88

dence. The officers appeared like men dressed
above their condition. It is impossible to give
the soldier a good education, without making him
a deserter. His natural foe is the government
that drills him. What would any philanthro-
pist, who felt an interest in these men's welfare,
naturally do, but first of all teach them so to
respect themselves, that they could not be hired
for this work, whatever might be the conse-
quences to this government or that ; — not drill
a few, but educate all. I observed one older
man among them, gray as a wharf -rat, and sup-
ple as the Devil, marching lock-step with the
rest, who would have to pay for that elastic gait.
We returned to the citadel along the heights,
plucking such flowers as grew there. There
was an abundance of auccory stiU in blossom,
broad - leaved golden - rod, buttercups, thorn-
bushes, Canada thistles, and ivy, on the very
summit of Cape Diamond. I also found the
bladder-campion in the neighborhood. We
there enjoyed an extensive view, which I will
describe in another place. Our pass, which
stated that all the rules were ^^to be strictly en-
forced," as if they were determined to keep up
the semblance of reality to the last gasp, opened
to us the Dalhousie Gate, and we were con-
ducted over the citadel by a bare-legged High-
lander in cocked hat and full regimentals. He

34 A YANKEE IN CANADA

told us that he had been here about three years,
and had formerly been stationed at Gibraltar.
As if his regiment, having perchance been nes-
tled amid the rocks of Edinburgh Castle, must
flit from rock to rock thenceforth over the
eai*th's surface, like a bald eagle, or other bird
of prey, from eyrie to eyrie. As we were going
out, we met the Yankees coming in, in a body
headed by a red-coated officer called the com-
mandant, and escorted by many citizens, both
English and French Canadian. I therefore im-
mediately fell into the procession, and went
round the citadel again with more intelligent
guides, carrying, as before, all my effects with
me. Seeing that nobody walked with the red-
coated commandant, I attached myself to him,
and though I was not what is called well-
dressed, he did not know whether to repel me
or not, for I talked like one who was not aware
of any deficiency in that respect. Probably
there was not one among aU the Yankees who
went to Canada this time, who was not more
splendidly dressed than I was. It would have
been a poor story if I had not enjoyed some dis-
tinction. I had on my "bad-weather clothes,"
like Olaf Trygesson the Northman, when he
went to the Thing in England, where, by the
way, he won his bride. As we stood by the
thirty-two-poimder on the smnmit of Cape Dii^

QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI 85

mond, which is fired three times a day, the com-
mandant told me that it would cany to the Isle
of Orleans, four miles distant, and that no hos-
tile vessel could come round the island. I now
saw the subterranean or, rather, ^^casemated
barracks " of the soldiers, which I had not no-
ticed before, though I might have walked over
them. They had very narrow windows, serving
as loop-holes for musketry, and small iron chim-
neys rising above the ground. There we saw
the soldiers at home and in an undress, split-
ting wood, — I looked to see whether with
swords or axes, — and in various ways endeav-
oring to realize that their nation was now at
peace with this part of the world. A part of
each regiment, chiefly officers, are allowed to
marry. A grandfatherly, would-be witty Eng-
lishman could give a Yankee whom he was pa-
tronizing no reason for the bare knees of the
Highlanders, other than oddity. The rock
within the citadel is a little convex, so that
shells falling on it would roll toward the - cir-
cimiference, where the barracks of the soldiers
and officers are; it has been proposed, there-
fore, to make it slightly concave, so that they
may roll into the centre, where they would be
comparatively harmless; and it is estimated
that to do this would cost twenty thousand
pounds sterling. It may be well to remember

86 A YANKEE IN CANADA

this when I build my next house, and have the
roof "all correct" for bombshells.

At mid-afternoon we made haste down Sault-
aU'Matdot Street, towards the Falls of Mont-
morenci, about eight miles down the St. Law-
rence, on the north side, leaving the further
examination of Quebec till our return. On our
way, we saw men in the streets sawing logs pit-
fashion, and afterward, with a common wood-
saw and horse, cutting the planks into squares
for paving the streets. This looked very shift-
less, especially in a country abounding in water-
power, and reminded me that I was no longer
in Yankee land. I found, on inquiry, that the
excuse for this was, that labor was so cheap;
and I thought, with some pain, how cheap men
are here ! I have since learned that the English
traveler, Warburton, remarked, soon after land-
ing at Quebec, that everything was cheap there
but men. That must be the difference between
going thither from New and from Old England.
I had already observed the dogs harnessed to
their little milk-carts, which contain a single
large can, lying asleep in the gutters regardless
of the horses, while they rested from their la-
bors, at different stages of the ascent in the
Upper Town. I was surprised at the regular
and extensive use made of these animals for
drawing, not only milk, but groceries, wood,

QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI 87

etc. It reminded me that the dog commonly is
not put to any use. Cats catch mice ; but dogs
only worry the cats. Kalm, a himdred years
ago! saw sledges here for ladies to ride in,
drawn by a pair of dogs. He says, "A middle-
sized dog is sufficient to draw a single person,
when the roads are good; " and he was told by
old people, that horses were very scarce in their
youth, and almost all the land-carriage was then
effected by dogs. They made me think of the
Esquimaux, who, in fact, are the next people
on the north. Charlevoix says that the first
horses were introduced in 1665.

We crossed Dorchester Bridge, over the St.
Charles, the Kttle river m which Cartier, the
discoverer of the St. Lawrence, put his ships,
and spent the winter of 1535, and found our-
selves on an excellent macadamized road, called
Le Chemin de Beauport. We had left Concord
Wednesday morning, and we endeavored to
realize that now, Friday morning, we were tak-
ing a walk in Canada, in the Seigniory of Beau-
port, a foreign country, which a few days before
had seemed almost as far off as England and
France. Instead of rambling to Flint's Pond
or the Sudbury Meadows, we found ourselves,
after being a little detained in cars and steam-
boats, — after spending half a night at Burling-
ton, and half a day at Montreal, — taking a

38 A YANKEE IN CANADA

walk down the bank of the St. Lawrence to the
Falls of Montmorenci, and elsewhere. Well,
I thought to myself, here I am in a foreign
comitry; let me have my eyes about me, and
take it all in. It already looked and felt a good
deal colder than it had in New England, as we
might have expected it would. I realized fully
that I was four degrees nearer the pole, and
shuddered at the thought ; and I wondered if it
were possible that the peaches might not be all
gone when I returned. It was an atmosphere
that made me think of the fur-trade, which is so
interesting a department in Canada, for I had
for all head covering a thin palm-leaf hat with-
out lining, that cost twenty-five cents, and over
my coat one of those unspeakably cheap, as well
as thin, brown linen sacks of the Oak Hall pat-
tern, which every summer appear all over New
England, thick as the leaves upon the trees. It
was a thoroughly Yankee costume, which some
of my fellow-travelers wore in the cars to save
their coats a dusting. I wore mine, at first,
because it looked better than the coat it covered,
and last, because two coats were warmer than
one, though one was thin and dirty. I never
wear my best coat on a journey, though per-
chance I could show a certificate to prove that
I have a more costly one, at least, at home, if
that were all that a gentleman required. It is

QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI 39

not wise for a traveler to go dressed. I should
no more think of it than of patting on a clean
dicky and blacking my shoes to go a-fishing; as
if you were going out to dine, when, in fact, the
genuine traveler is going out to work hard, and
fare harder, — to eat a crust by the wayside
whenever he can get it. Honest traveling is
about as dirty work as you can do, and a man
needs a pair of overalls for it. As for blacking
my shoes in such a case, I should as soon think
of blacking my face. I carry a piece of tallow
to preserve the leather and keep out the water ;
that's all; and many an officious shoeblack,
who carried off my shoes when I was slumber-
ing, mistaking me for a gentleman, has had oc-
casion to repent it before he produced a gloss
on them.

My pack, in fact, was soon made, for I keep
a short list of those articles which, from fre-
quent experience, I have found indispensable to
the foot-traveler ; and, when I am about to start,
I have only to consult that, to be sure that no-
thing is omitted, and, what is more important,
nothing superfluous inserted. Most of my fel-
low-travelers carried carpet-bags, or valises.
Sometimes one had two or three ponderous yel-
low valises in his clutch, at each hitch of the
cars, as if we were going to have another rush
for seats ; and when there was a rush in earnest,

40 A YANKEE IN CANADA

and there were not a few, I would see my man
in the crowd, with two or three affectionate
lusty fellows along each side of his arm, between
his shoulder and his valises, which last held them
tight to his back, like the nut on the end of a
screw. I could not help asking in my mind,
What so great cause for showing Canada to
those valises, when perhaps your very nieces had
to stay at home for want of an escort? I should
have liked to be present when the custom-house
officer came aboard of him, and asked him to
declare upon his honor if he had anything but
wearing apparel in them. Even the elephant
carries but a small trunk on his journeys. The
perfection of traveling is to travel without bag-
gage. After considerable reflection and expe-
rience, I have concluded that the best bag for
the foot-traveler is made with a handkerchief,
or, if he study appearances, a piece of stiff
brown paper, well tied up, with a fresh piece
within to put outside when the first is torn.
That is good for both town and country, and
none will know but you are carrying home the
silk for a new gown for your wife, when it may
be a dirty shirt. A bundle which you can carry
literally under your arm, and which will shrink
and swell with its contents. I never found the
carpet-bag of equal capacity, which was not a
bundle of itself. We styled ourselves the

QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCl 41

Knights of the Umbrella and the Bundle ; for,
wherever we went, whether to Notre Dame or
Mount Royal or the Champ de Mars, to the
Town Major's or the Bishop's Palace, to the
Citadel, with a bare-legged Highlander for our
escort, or to the Plains of Abraham, to dinner
or to bed, the umbrella and the bundle went
with us ; for we wished to be ready to digress at
any moment. We made it our home nowhere
in particular, but everywhere where our um-
brella and bundle were. It would have been an
amusing circumstance, if the Mayor of one of
those cities had politely asked us where we were
staying. We could only have answered, that
we were staying with his Honor for the time be-
ing. I was amused when, after our return,
some green ones inquired if we found it easy to
get accommodated ; as if we went abroad to get
accommodated, when we can get that at home.

We met with many charettes, bringing wood
and stone to the city. The most ordinary look-
ing horses traveled faster than ours, or per-
haps they were ordinary looking because, as I
am told, the Canadians do not use the curry-
comb. Moreover, it is said that on the ap-
proach of winter their horses acquire an in-
creased quantity of hair, to protect them from
the cold. If this be true, some of our horses
would make you think winter were approaching,

42 A YANKEE IN CANADA

even in midsummer. We soon began to see
women and girls at work in the fields, digging
potatoes alone, or bundling up the grain which
the men cut. They appeared in rude health,
with a great deal of color in their cheeks, and,
if their occupation had made them coarse, it
impressed me as better in its effects than mak-
ing shirts at fourpence apiece, or doing nothing
at all, — unless it be chewing slate pencils, with
still smaller results. They were much more
agreeable objects, with their great broad-
brimmed hats and flowing dresses, than the men
and boys. We afterwards saw them doing
various other kinds of work ; indeed, I thought
that we saw more women at work out of doors
than men. On our return, we observed in this
town a girl, with Indian boots nearly two feet
high, taking the harness off a dog.

The purity and transparency of the atmosphere
were wonderful. When we had been walking
an hour, we were surprised, on turning round, to
see how near the city, with its gHttering tin roofs,
still looked. A village ten miles off did not ap-
pear to be more than three or four. I was con-
vinced that you could see objects distinctly there
much farther than here. It is true the villages
are of a dazzling white, but the dazzle is to be
referred, perhaps, to the transparency of the at-
mosphere as much as to the whitewash.

QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI 43

We were now fairly in the village of Beau-
port, though there was still but one road. The
houses stood close upon this, without any front
yards, and at an angle with it, as if they had
dropped down, being set with more reference to
the road which the sun travels. It being about
sundown, and the Falls not far off, we began to
look round for a lodging, for we preferred to
put up at a private house, that we might see
more of the inhabitants. We inquired first at
the most promising looking houses, if, indeed,
any were promising. When we knocked, they
shouted some French word for come in, perhaps
entrezn and we asked for a lodging in English;
but we found, unexpectedly, that they spoke
French only. Then we went along and tried
another house, being generally saluted by a rush
of two or three little curs, which readily distin-
guished a foreigner, and which we were pre-
pared now to hear bark in French. Our first
question would be, Parlez-vous Anglais? but
the invariable answer was, iVon, monsieur;
and we soon found that the inhabitants were ex-
clusively French Canadians, and nobody spoke
English at all, any more than in France ; that,
in fact, we were in a foreign country, where the
inhabitants uttered not one familiar sound to
us. Then we tried by turns to talk French
with them, in which we succeeded sometimes

44 A YANKEE IN CANADA

pretty weD, but for the most part pretty ill.
Pouvez'Vous nous donner un lit cette nuit ? we
would ask, and then they would answer with
French volubility, so that we could catch only a
word here and there. We could understand the
women and children generally better than the
men, and they us; and thus, after a while, we
would learn that they had no more beds than
they used.

So we were compelled to inquire T a-t-U une
maison puhlique ici ? (auberge we should have
said, perhaps, for they seemed never to have
heard of the other), and they answered at length
that there was no tavern, unless we could get
lodgings at the miU, le movlin^ which we had
passed; or they would direct us to a grocery,
and almost every house had a small grocery at
one end of it. We called on the public notary
or village lawyer, but he had no more beds nor
English than the rest. At one house there was
so good a misunderstanding at once established
through the politeness of all parties, that we
were encouraged to walk in and sit down, and
ask for a glass of water; and having drank their
water, we thought it was as good as to have
tasted their salt. When our host and his wife
spoke of their poor accommodations, meaning
for themselves, we assured them that they were
good enough, for we thought that they were

QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI 45

only apologizing for the poorness of the accom-
modations they were about to offer us, and we
did not discover our mistake till they took us up
a ladder into a loft, and showed to our eyes
what they had been laboring in vain to commu-
nicate to our brains through our ears, that they
had but that one apartment with its few beds
for the whole family. We made our a-dieus
forthwith, and with graVity, perceiving the Ut-
eral signification of that word. We were finally
taken in at a sort of public-house, whose mas-
ter worked for Patterson, the proprietor of the
extensive saw-mills driven by a portion of the
Montmorenci stolen from the fall, whose roar
we now heard. We here talked, or murdered,
French all the evening, with the master of the
house and his family, and probably had a more
amusing time than if we had completely under-
stood one another. At length they showed us
to a bed in their best chamber, very high to get
into, with a low wooden rail to it. It had no
cotton sheets, but coarse, home-made, dark-col-
ored, linen ones. Afterward, we had to do with
sheets still coarser than these, and nearly the
color of our blankets. There was a large open
buffet loaded with crockery in one comer of the
room, as if to display their wealth to travelers,
and pictures of Scripture scenes, French, Ital-
ian, and Spanish, hung around. Our hostess

46 A YANKEE IN CANADA

came back directly to inquire if we would have
brandy for breakfast. The next morning, when
I asked their names, she took down the temper-
ance pledges of herself and husband, and chil-
dren, which were hanging against the waU.
They were Jean Baptiste Binet, and his wife,
Genevieve Binet. Jean Baptiste is the so-
briquet of the French Canadians.

After breakfast we proceeded to the fall,
which was within half a mile, and at this dis-
tance its rustling sound, like the wind among
the leaves, filled all the air. We were disap-
pointed to find that we were in some measure
shut out from the west side of the fall by the
private groimds and fences of Patterson, who
appropriates not only a part of the water for his
mill, but a still larger part of the prospect, so
that we were obliged to trespass. This gentle-
man's mansion house and grounds were formerly
occupied by the Duke of Kent, father to Queen
Victoria. It appeared to me in bad taste for
an individual, though he were the father of
Queen Victoria, to obtrude himself with his
land titles, or at least his fences, on so remark-
able a natural phenomenon, which should, in
every sense, belong to mankind. Some falls
should even be kept sacred from the intrusion of
mills and factories, as water privileges in an-
other than the millwright's sense. This small

QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI 47

river falls perpendicularly nearly two hundred
and fifty feet at one pitch. The St. Lawrence
falls only one • hundred and sixty-four feet at
Niagara. It is a very simple and noble fall,
and leaves nothing to be desired ; but the most
that I could say of it would only have the force
of one other testimony to assure the reader that
it is there. We looked directly down on it
from the point of a projecting rock, and saw far
below us, on a low promontory, the grass kept
fresh and green by the perpetual drizzle, look-
ing like moss. The rock is a kind of slate, in
the crevices of which grew ferns and golden-
rods. The prevailing trees on the shores were
sprucQ and arbor-vitae, — the latter very large
and now fuU of fruit, — also aspens, alders, and
the mountain-ash with its berries. Every emi-
grant who arrives in this country by way of the
St. Lawrence, as he opens a point of the Isle of
Orleans, sees the Montmorenci tumbling into the
Great River thus magnificently in a vast white
sheet, making its contribution with emphasis.
Roberval's pilot, Jean Alphonse, saw this fall
thus, and described it, in 1542. It is a splen-
did introduction to the scenery of Quebec. In-
stead of an artificial fountain in its square,
Quebec has this magnificent natural waterfall,
to adorn one side of its harbor. Within the
mouth of the chasm below, which can be entered

48 A YANKEE IN CANADA

only at ebb tide, we had a grand view at once
of Quebec and of the fall. Kahn says that the
noise of the fall is sometimes heard at Quebec,
about eight miles distant, and is a sign of a
northeast wind. The side of this chasm, of soft
and crumbling slate too steep to climb, was
among the memorable features of the scene. In
the winter of 1829 the frozen spray of the fall,
descending on the ice of the St. Lawrence, made
a hill one hundred and twenty-six feet high. It
is an annual phenomenon which some think may
help explain the formation of glaciers.

In the vicinity of the fall we began to notice
what looked like our red-fruited thorn bushes,
grown to the size of ordinary apple-trees, very
common, and full of large red or yellow fruit,
which the inhabitants called pommettes^ but I
did not learn that they were put to any use.

CHAPTER III

ST. ANNE

By the middle of the forenoon, though it was
a rainy day^ we were once more on our way
down the north bank of the St. Lawrence, in a
northeasterly direction, toward the Falls of St.
Anne, which are about thirty miles from Que-
bec. The settled, more level, and fertile por-
tion of Canada East may be described rudely as
a triangle, with its apex slanting toward the
northeast, about one hundred miles wide at its
base, and from two to three or even four hun-
dred miles long, if you reckon its narrow north-
eastern extremity ; it being the immediate valley
of the St. Lawrence and its tributaries, rising
by a single or by successive terraces toward the
mountains on either hand. Though the words
Canada East on the map stretch over many riv-
ers and lakes and unexplored wildernesses, the
actual Canada, which might be the colored por-
tion of the map, is but a little clearing on the
banks of the river, which one of those syllables
would more than cover. The banks of the St.
Lawrence are rather low from Montreal to the

50 A YANKEE IN CANADA

Kichelieu Eapids, about forty miles above Que-
bec. Thence they rise gradually to Cape Dia-
mond, OP Quebec. Where we now were, eight
miles northeast of Quebec, the mountains which
form the northern side of this triangle were only
five or six miles distant from the river, gradu-
ally departing farther and farther from it, on
the west, tiU they reach the Ottawa, and making
haste to meet it on the east, at Cape Tourmente,
now in plain sight about twenty miles distant.
So that we were traveling in a very narrow and
sharp triangle between the mountains and the
river, tilted up toward the mountains on the
north, never losing sight of our great fellow-
traveler on our right. According to Bouchette's
Topographical Description of the Canadas, we
were in the Seigniory of the Cote de Beaupre,
in the county of Montmorenci, and the district
of Quebec; in that part of Canada which was
the first to be settled, and where the face of the
country and the population have undergone the
least change from the beginning, where the in-
fluence of the States and of Europe is least felt,
and the inhabitants see little or nothing of the
world over the walls of Quebec. This Seigniory
was granted in 1636, and is now the property
of the Seminary of Quebec. It is the most
mountainous one in the province. There are
some half a dozen parishes in it, each contain-

ST. ANNE 51

ing a church, parsonage-house, grist-mill, and
several saw-mills. We were now in the most
westerly parish, called Ange Gardien, or the
Guardian Angel, which is bounded on the west
by the Montmorenci. The north bank of the
St. Lawrence here is formed on a grand scale.
It slopes gently, either directly from the shore,
or from the edge of an interval, till, at the dis-
tance of about a mile, it attains the height of
four or five hundred feet. The single road runs
along the side of the slope two or three hundred
feet above the river at first, and from a quarter
of a mile to a mile distant from it, and affords
fine views of the north- channel, which is about
a mile wide, and of the beautiful Isle of Or-
leans, about twenty miles long by five wide,
where grow the best apples and plums in the
Quebec District.

Though there was but this single road, it was
a continuous village for as far as we walked this
day and the next, or about thirty miles down
the river, the houses being as near together all
the way as in the middle of one of our smallest
straggling country villages, and we could never
tell by their number when we were on the skirts
of a parish, for the road never ran through the
fields or woods. We were told that it was just
six miles from one parish church to another. I
thought that we saw every house in Ange Gar7

52 A YANKEE IN CANADA

dien. Therefore, as it was a muddy day, we
never got out of the mud, nor out of the village,
unless we got over the fence ; then, indeed, if it
was on the north side, we were out of the civil-
ized world. There were sometimes a few more
houses near the church, it is true, but we had
only to go a quarter of a mile from the road to
the top of the bank to find ourselves on the
verge of the uninhabited, and, for the most part,
unexplored wilderness stretching toward Hud-
son's Bay. The farms accordingly were ex-
tremely long and narrow, each having a frontage
on the river. Bouchette accounts for this pecu-
liar manner of laying out a village by referring
to ^'the social character of the Canadian peas-
ant, who is singularly fond of neighborhood,"
also to the advantage arising from a concentra-
tion of strength in Indian times. Each farm,
called terre^ he says, is, in nine cases out of ten,
three arpents wide by thirty deep, that is, very
nearly thirty-five by three hundred and forty-
nine of our rods; sometimes one half arpent by
thirty, or one to sixty; sometimes, in fact, a
few yards by half a mile. Of course it costs
more for fences. A remarkable difiference be-
tween the Canadian and the New England char-
acter appears from the fact that, in 1745, the
French government were obliged to pass a law
forbidding the farmers or cefisitaires building

ST. ANNE 53

on land less than one and a half arpents front
by thirty or forty deep, under a certam j^nalty,
in order to compel emigration, and bring the
seigneur's estates all under cultivation ; and it
is thought that they have now less reluctance to
leave the paternal roof than formerly, "remov-
ing beyond the sight of the parish spire, or the
sound of the parish bell." But I find that in
the previous or seventeenth century, the com-
plaint, often renewed, was of a totally opposite
character, namely, that the inhabitants dis-
persed and exposed themselves to the Iroquois.
Accordingly, about 1664, the king was obliged
to order that "they should make no more clear-
ings except one next to another, and that they
should reduce their parishes to the form of the
parishes in France as much as possible." The
Canadians of those days, at least, possessed a
i.>ving spirit of advenLe which ca^ied them
further, in exposure to hardship and danger,
than ever the New England colonist went, and
led them, though not to clear and colonize the
wilderness, yet to range over it as coureurs de
bois^ or runners of the woods, or, as Hontan
prefers to call them, coureurs de risques^ runners
of risks; to say nothing of their enterprising
priesthood; and Charlevoix thinks that if the
authorities had taken the right steps to prevent
the youth from ranging the woods (de ccmrir les

64 A YANKEE IN CANADA

hoia) they would have had an excellent militia
to fightf the Indians and English.

The road in this clayey-looking soil was ex-
ceedingly muddy in consequence of the night's
rain. We met an old woman directing her dog,
which was harnessed to a little cart, to the least
muddy part of it. It was a beggarly sight.
But harnessed to the cart as he was, we heard
him barking after we had passed, though we
looked anywhere but to the cart to see where
the dog was that barked. The houses com-
monly fronted the south, whatever angle they
might make with the road ; and frequently they
had no door nor cheerful window on the road
side. HaK the time they stood fifteen to forty
rods from the road, and there was no very obvi-
ous passage to them, so that you would suppose
that there must be another road running by
them. They were of stone, rather coarsely
mortared, but neatly whitewashed, almost in-
variably one story high and long in proportion
to their height, with a shingled roof, the shin-
gles being pointed, for ornament, at the eaves,
like the pickets of a fence, and also one row
halfway up the roof. The gables sometimes
projected a foot or two at the ridge-pole only.
Yet they were very humble and unpretending
dwellings. They commonly had the date of
their erection on them. The windows opened

ST. ANNE 65

in the middle, like blinds, and were frequently
provided with solid shutters. Sometimes, when
we walked along the back side of a house which
stood near the road, we observed stout stakes
leaning against it, by which the shutters, now
pushed half open, were fastened at night ; within,
the houses were neatly ceiled with wood not
painted. The oven was commonly out of doors,
built of stone and mortar, frequently on a raised
platform of planks. The cellar was often on
the opposite side of the road, in front of or be-
hind the houses, looking like an ice-house with
us, with a lattice door for summer. The very
few mechanics whom we met had an old-Betty-
ish look, in their aprons and bonnets rouges^
like fools' caps. The men wore commonly the
same bonnet rouge^ or red woolen or worsted
cap, or sometimes blue or gray, looking to us aa
if they had got up with their night-caps on, and,
in fact, I afterwards found that they had.
Their clothes were of the cloth of the country,
etoffe dupays^ gray or some other plain color.
The women looked stout, with gowns that stood
out stiffly, also, for the most part, apparently
of some home-made stuff. We also saw some
specimens of the more characteristic winter
dress of the Canadian, and I have since fre-
quently detected him in New England by his
coarse gray homespun capote and picturesque

56 A YANKEE IN CANADA

red sash, and liis well-furred cap, made to pro-
tect his ears against the severity of his climate.

It drizzled aU day, so that the roads did not
improve. We began now to meet with wooden
crosses frequently, by the roadside, about a
dozen feet high, often old and toppling down,
sometimes standing in a square wooden plat-
form, sometimes in a pile of stones, with a little
niche containing a picture of the Virgin and
Child, or of Christ alone, sometimes with a
string of beads, and covered with a piece of
glass to keep out the rain, with the words, pour
la vierge^ or INEI, on them. Frequently, on
the cross-bar, there would be quite a collection
of symbolical knickknacks, looking like an
Italian's board; the representation in wood of
a hand, a hammer, spikes, pincers, a flask of
vinegar, a ladder, etc., the whole, perchance,
surmounted by a weathercock ; but I could not
look at an honest weathercock in this walk with-
out mistrusting that there was some covert re-
ference in it to St. Peter. From time to time
we passed a little one-story chapel-like building,
with a tin-roofed spire, a shrine, perhaps it
would be called, close to the pathside, with a
lattice door, through which we could see an al-
tar, and pictures about the walls ; equally open,
through rain and shine, though there was no
getting into it. At these places the inhabitants

ST. ANNE 57

kneeled and perliaps breathed a short prayer.
We saw one school-house in our walk, and lis-
tened to the sounds which issued from it; but it
appeared like a place where the process, not of
enlightening, but of obfuscating the mind was
going on, and the pupils received only so much
light as could penetrate the shadow of the Cath*
olic Church. The churches were very pictur-
esque, and their interior much more showy than
the dwelling-houses promised. They were of^
stone, for it was ordered, in 1699, that that
should be their material.^ They had tinned
spires, and quaint ornaments. That of TAnge
Gardien had a dial on it, with the Middle Age
Koman numerals on its face, and some images
in niches on the outside. Probably its counter-
part has existed in Normandy for a thousand
years. At the church of Chateau Richer, which
is the next parish to I'Ange Gardien, we read,
looking over the wall, the inscriptions in the
adjacent churchyard, which began with, "ici
jrtY" or "i?cpose," and one over a boy con-
tained, "Pnea pour luV^ This answered as
well as Pere la Chaise. We knocked at the
door of the cure's house here, when a sleek,
friar-like personage, in his sacerdotal robe, ap-
peared. To our Parlez'Vous Anglais ? even he
answered, ^*'Non^ monsieur ;^^ but at last we
made him understand what we wanted. It was

58 A YANKEE IN CANADA

to find the ruins of the old chateau. ^^Ah!
ouil ouil^^ he exclaimed, and, donning his
coat, hastened forth, and conducted us to a
small heap of rubbish which we had already
examined. He said that fifteen years before,
it was plus considerable. Seeing at that mo-
ment three little red birds fly out of a crevice
in the ruins, up into an arbor-vitae tree which
grew out of them, I asked him their names, in
. such French as I could muster, but he neither
understood me nor ornithology ; he only inquired
where we had appris a parler Frangais; we
told him, dans les £!tatS'Unis ; and so we
bowed him into his house again. I was sur-
prised to find a man wearing a black coat, and
with apparently no work to do, even in that part
of the world.

The universal salutation from the inhabitants
whom we met was hon jour^ at the same time
touching the hat; with hon jour ^ and touching
your hat, you may go smoothly through all
Canada East. A little boy, meeting us, would
remark, "<Bow jour^ monsieur; le cJiemin est
mauvais^^^ Good morning, sir; it is bad walk-
ing. Sir Francis Head says that the immigrant
is forward to "appreciate the happiness of liv-
ing in a land in which the old country's servile
custom of touching the hat does not exist," but
he was thinking of Canada West, of course. It

ST. ANNE 59

would, indeed, be a serious bore to be obliged
to touch your hat several times a day. A Yan-
kee has not leisure for it.

We saw peas, and even beans, collected into
heaps in the fields. The former are an impor-
tant crop here, and, I suppose, are not so much
infested by the weevil as with us. There were
plenty of apples, very fair and sound, by the
roadside, but they were so small as to suggest
the origin of the apple in the crab. There was
also a smaU, red fruit which they called sndls^
and another, also red and very acid, whose
name a little boy wrote for me, ^pinbena.^^ It
is probably the same with, or similar to, the
pemhina of the voyageurs, a species of vibur-
num, which, according to Richardson, has given
its name to many of the rivers of Rupert's
Land. The forest trees were spruce, arbor-vitae,
firs, birches, beeches, two or three kinds of ma-
ple, bass-wood, wild-cherry, aspens, etc., but
no pitch pines (^Pinus rigida). I saw very few,
if any, trees which had been set out for shade
or ornament. The water was commonly run-
ning streams or springs in the bank by the road-
side, and was excellent. The parishes are com-
monly separated by a stream, and frequently the
farms. I noticed that the fields were furrowed
or thrown into beds seven or eight feet wide to
dry the soil.

60 A YANKEE IN CANADA

At the Riviere du Sault a la Puce^ which, I
suppose, means the River of the Fall of the
Flea, was advertised in English, as the sports-
men are English, "The best Snipe-shooting
grounds," over the door of a small public-house.
These words being English affected me as if I
had been absent now ten years from my coun-
try, and for so long had not heard the sound of
my native language, and every one of them was
as interesting to me as if I had been a snipe-
shooter, and they had been snipes. The pru-
nella, or seK-heal, in the grass here, was an old
acquaintance. We frequently saw the inhabi-
tants washing, or cooking for their pigs, and in
one place hackling flax by the roadside. It was
pleasant to see these usually domestic operations
carried on out of doors, even in that cold coun-
try.

At twffight we reached a bridge over a little
river, the boundary between Chateau Richer
and St. Anne, le premier pont de St. Anne^ and
at dark the church of La Bonne St. Anne.
Formerly vessels from France, when they came
in sight of this church, gave "a general dis-
charge of their artillery," as a sign of joy that
they had escaped all the dangers of the river.
Though all the while we had grand views of the
adjacent country far up and down the river,
and, for the most part, when we turned about,

ST. ANNE 61

of Quebec in the horizon behind us, and we
never beheld it without new surprise and admi-
ration; yet, throughout our walk, the Great
River of Canada on our right hand was the
main feature in the landscape, and this expands
so rapidly below the Isle of Orleans, and creates
such a breadth of level horizon above its waters
in that direction, that, looking down the river
as we approached the extremity of that island,
the St, Lawrence seemed to be opening into the
ocean, though we were still about three hundred
and twenty-five miles from what can be called
its mouth. ^

When we inquired here for a maison puhlique
we were directed apparently to that private
house where we were most likely to find enter-
tainment. There were no guideboards where
we walked, because there was but one road;
there were no shops nor signs, becau^there were
no artisans to speak of, and the pKple raised
their own provisions ; and there were no taverns,
because there were no travelers. We here be-
spoke lodging and breakfast. They had, as

^ From McGnUoch's Geographical Dictionary we learn that
" immediately beyond the Island of Orleans it is a mile broad ;
where the Sagnenay joins it, eighteen miles ; at Point Peter,
upward of thirty ; at the Bay of Seven Islands, seventy miles ;
and at the Island of Anticosti (about three hundred and fifty
miles from Qnebec), it rolls a flood into the ocean nearly one
hundred miles across."

62 A YANKEE IN CANADA

usual, a large, old-fashioned, two-storied box-
stove in the middle of the room, out of which,
in due time, there was sure to be forthcoming
a supper, breakfast, or dinner. The lower half
held the fire, the upper the hot air, and as it
was a cool Canadian evening, this was a^ com-
forting sight to us. Being four or five feet
high it warmed the whole person as you stood
by it. The stove was plainly a very important
article of furniture in Canada, and was not set
aside during the summer. Its size, and the re-
spect which was paid to it, told of the severe
winters which it had seen and prevailed over.
The master of the house, in his long-pointed,
red woolen cap, had a thoroughly antique physi-
ognomy of the old Norman stamp. He might
have come over with Jacques Cartier. His was
the hardest French to understand of any we had
heard yet, for there was a great difference be-
tween one speaker and another, and this man
talked with a pipe in his mouth beside, a kind
of tobacco French. I asked him what he called
his dog. He shouted Brock/ (the name of
the breed). We like to hear the cat called min^
— min! min! mini I inquired if we could
cross the river here to the Isle of Orleans, think-
ing to return that way when we had been to the
falls. He answered, " S^il ne fait pas un trop
grand vent^^^ If there is not too much wind.

ST. ANNE 68

They use small boats, or -pirogues, and the
waves are often too high for them. He wore,
as usTial, something between a moccasin and a
boot, which he called hottea Indiennes^ Indian
boots, and had made himself. The tops were
of calf or sheep-skin, and the soles of cowhide
turned up like a moccasin. They were yellow
or reddish, the leather never having been tanned
nor colored. The women wore the same. He
told us that he had traveled ten leagues due
north into the bush. He had been to the Falls
of St. Anne, and said that they were more beau-
tiful, but not greater, than Montmorenci, plus
beaUj mais non plus grand que Montmorenci.
As soon as we had retired, the family com-
menced their devotions. A little boy officiated,
and for a long time we heard him muttering
over his prayers.

In the morning, after a breakfast of tea, ma-
ple-sugar, bread and butter, and what I suppose
is called potage (potatoes and meat boiled with
flour), the universal dish as we found, perhaps
the national one, I ran over to the Church of
La Bonne St. Anne, whose matin bell we had
heard, it being Sunday morning. Our book
said that this church had ^4ong been an object
of interest, from the miraculous cures said to
have been wrought on visitors to the shrine."
There was a profusion of gilding, and I counted

64 A YANKEE IN CANADA

more than twenty-five crutches suspended on the
walls, some for grown persons, some for chil-
dren, which it was to be inferred so many sick
had been able to dispense with ; but they looked
as if they had been made to order by the car-
penter who made the church. There were one
or two villagers at their devotions at that early
hour, who did not look up, but when they had
sat a long time with their little book before the
picture of one saint, went to another. Our
whole walk was through a thoroughly Catholic
country, and there was no trace of any other re-
ligion. I doubt if there are any more simple
and unsophisticated Catholics anywhere. Em-
ery de Caen, Champlain's contemporary, told
the Huguenot sailors that "Monseigneur the
Duke de Ventadour (Viceroy) did not wish that
they should sing psalms in the Great River."

On our way to the falls, we met the habitans
coming to the Church of La Bonne St. Anne,
walking or riding in charettes by families. I
remarked that they were imiversally of small
stature. The toll-man at the bridge over the
St. Anne was the first man we had chanced to
meet, since we left Quebec, who could speak a
word of English. How good French the inhab-
itants of this part of Canada speak, I am not
competent to say; I only know that it is not
made impure by being mixed with English. I

ST. ANNE 65

do not know wliy it should not be as good as is
spoken in Normandy. Charlevoix, who was
here a hundred years ago, observes, "The
French language is nowhere spoken with greater
purity, there being no accent perceptible; " and
Potherie said "they had no dialect, which, in-
deed, is generally lost in a colony."

The falls, which we were in search of, are
three miles up the St. Anne. We followed for
a short distance a foot-path up the east bank of
this river, through handsome sugar-maple and
arbor-vit« groves. Having lost the path which
led to a house where we were to get further
directions, we dashed at once into the woods,
steering by guess and by compass, climbing di-
rectly through woods a steep hill, or mountain,
five or six hundred feet high, which was, in
fact, only the bank of the St. Lawrence. Be-
yond this we by good luck fell into another
path, and following this or a branch of it, at
our discretion, through a forest consisting of
large white pines, — the first we had seen in our
walk, — we at length heard the roar of falling
water, and came out at the head of the Falls of
St. Anne. We had descended into a ravine or
cleft in the mountain, whose walls rose still a
hundred feet above us, though we were near its
top, and we now stood on a very rocky shore,
where the water had lately flowed a dozen feet

66 A YANKEE IN CANADA

higher, as appeared by the stones and drift-
wood, and large birches twisted and splintered
as a farmer twists a withe. Here the river, one
or two hundred feet wide, came flowing rapidly
over a rocky bed out of that interesting wilder-
ness which stretches toward Hudson's Bay and
Davis's Straits. Ha-ha Bay, on the Saguenay,
was about one hundred miles north of where we
stood. Looking on the map, I find that the
first country on the north which bears a name is
that part of Rupert's Land called East Main.
This river, called after the holy Anne, flowing
from such a direction, here tumbled over a pre-
cipice, at present by three channels, how far
down I do not know, but far enough for all our
purposes, and to as good a distance as if twice
as far. It matters little whether you call it
one, or two, or three hundred feet ; at any rate,
it was a sufficient water-privilege for us. I
crossed the principal channel directly over the
verge of the fall, where it was contracted to
about fifteen feet in width, by a dead tree, which
had been dropped across and secured in a cleft
of the opposite rock, and a smaller one a few
feet higher, which served for a hand-rail. This
bridge was rotten as well as small and slippery,
being stripped of bark, and I was obliged to
seize a moment to pass when the falling water
did not surge over it, and mid-way, though at

ST. ANNE 67

the expense of wet feet, I looked down probably
more than a hundred feet, into the mist and
foam below. This gave me the freedom of an
island of precipitous rock by which I descended
as by giant steps, — the rock being composed of
large cubical masses, clothed with delicate close-
hugging lichens of various colors, kept fresh and
bright by the moisture, — till I viewed the first
fall from the front, and looked down still deeper
to where the second and third channels fell into
a remarkably large circular basin worn in the
stone. The falling water seemed to jar the very
rocks, and the noise to be ever increasing. The
vista down stream was through a narrow and
deep cleft in the mountain, all white suds at the
bottom ; but a sudden angle in this gorge pre-
vented my seeing through to the bottom of the
fall. Returning to the shore, I made my way
down stream through the forest to see how far
the fall extended, and how the river came out of
that adventure. It was to clamber along the
side of a precipitous mountain of loose mossy
rocks, covered with a damp primitive forest,
and terminating at the bottom in an abrupt
precipice over the stream. This was the east
side of the fall. At length, after a quarter of a
mile, I got down to still water, and, on looking
up through the winding gorge, I could just see
to the foot of the fall which I had before exam-

68 A YANKEE IN CANADA

ined; while from the opposite side of the stream,
here much contracted, rose a perpendicular
wall, I will not venture to say how many hun-
dred feet, but only that it was the highest per-
pendicular wall of bare rock that I ever saw.
In front of me tumbled in from the summit of
the cliff a tributary stream, making a beautiful
cascade, which was a remarkable fall in itself,
and there was a cleft in this precipice, appar-
ently four or five feet wide, perfectly straight
up and down from top to bottom, which, from
its cavernous depth and darkness, appeared
merely as a black streak. This precipice is not
sloped, nor is the material soft and crumbling
slate as at Montmorenci, but it rises perpendic-
ular, like the side of a mountain fortress, and is
cracked into vast cubical masses of gray and
black rock shining with moisture, as if it were
the ruin of an ancient wall built by Titans.
Birches, spruces, mountain-ashes with their
bright red berries, arbor-vitses, white pines,
alders, etc., overhung this chasm on the very
verge of the cliff and in the crevices, and here
and there were buttresses of rock supporting
trees part way down, yet so as to enhance, not
injure, the effect of the bare rock. Take it al-
together, it was a most wild and rugged and
stupendous chasm, so deep and narrow where a
river had worn itself a passage through a moun-

ST. ANNE 69

tain of rock, and all around was the compara-
tively untrodden wilderness.

This was the limit of our walk down the St.
Lawrence. Early in the afternoon we began to
retrace our steps, not being able to cross the
north channel and return by the Isle of Orleans,
on account of the trop grand vent^ or too great
wind. Though the waves did run pretty high,
it was evident that the inhabitants of Mont-
morenci County were no sailors, and made but
little use of the river. When we reached the
bridge, between St. Anne and Chateau Richer,
I ran back a little way to ask a man in the field
the name of the river which we were crossing,
but for a long time I could not make out what
he said, for he was one of the more unintelligi-
ble Jacques Cartier men. At last it flashed
upon me that it was Xa Himere au Ckien, or
the Dog River, which my eyes beheld, which
brought to my mind the life of the Canadian
voyageur and coureur de boisj a more western
and wilder Arcadia, methinks, than the world
has ever seen; for the Greeks, with all their
wood and river gods, were not so qualified to
name the natural features of a country as the
ancestors of these French Canadians ; and if any
people had a right to substitute their own for
the Indian names, it was they. They have pre-
ceded the pioneer on our own frontiers, and

70 A YANKEE IN CANADA

named the />rairie for us. La Riviere an Chien
cannot, by any license of language, be translated
into Dog River, for that is not such a giving it
to the dogs, and recognizing their place in crea-
tion, as the French implies. One of the tribu-
taries of the St. Anne is named La Rimere de
la Rose ; and farther east are La Riviere de la
Blonddle and La Rimere de la Friponne,
Their very riviere meanders more than our river.
Yet the impression which this country made
on me was commonly different from this. To a
traveler from the Old World, Canada East may
appear like a new country, and its inhabitants
like colonists, but to me coming from New Eng-
land, and being a very green traveler withal, —
notwithstanding what I have said about Hud-
son's Bay, — it appeared as old as Normandy
itself, and realized much that I had heard of
Europe and the Middle Ages. Even the names
of humble Canadian villages affected me as if
they had been those of the renowned cities of
antiquity. To be told by a habitan, when I
asked the name of a village in sight, that it is
St. Fereole or St. Anne^ the Gitardian Any el
or the Hcly Joseph's ; or of a mountain, that it
was BUange or St. Hyacinthe! As soon as
you leave the States, these saintly names begin.
St. John is the first town you stop at (fortu-
nately we did not see it), and thenceforward.

ST, ANNE 71

the names of the mountains, and streams, and
villages reel, if I may so speak, with the intoxi-
cation of poetry, — Chamhly^ Longueil^ Pointe
aux Trembles^ Bartholomy^ etc., etc.; as if it
needed only a little foreign accent, a few more
liquids and vowels perchance in the language, to
make us locate our ideals at once. I began to
dream of Provence and the Troubadours, and of
places and things which have no existence on the
earth. They veiled the Indian and the primi-
tive forest, and the woods toward Hudson's
Bay were only as the forests of France and Ger-
many. I could not at once bring myself to be-
lieve that the inhabitants who pronounced daily
those beautiful and, to me, significant names
lead as prosaic lives as we of New England. In
short, the Canada which I saw was not merely a
place for railroads to terminate in and for crim-
inals to run to.

When I asked the man to whom I have re-
ferred, if there were any falls on the Riviere au
Chien, — for I saw that it came over the same
high bank with the Montmorenci and St. Anne,
— he answered that there were. How far? I
inquired. Trois quatrea lieue. How high?
Je pense^ quatre-mngt^dix pieds ; that is, ninety
feet. We turned aside to look at the falls of
the Siviere du Savlt a la Pv>ce^ half a mile
from the road, which before we had passed in

72 A YANKEE IN CANADA

our haste and ignorance, and we pronounced
them as beautiful as any that we saw; yet they
seemed to make no account of them there, and,
when first we inquired the way to the falls, di-
rected us to Montmorenci, seven miles distant.
It was evident that this was the country for wa-
terfalls ; that every stream that empties into the
St. Lawrence, for some hundreds of miles, must
have a great fall or cascade on it, and in its
passage through the mountains was, for a short
distance, a small Saguenay, with its upright
walls. This fall of La Puce, tha least remark-
able of the four which we visited in this vicinity,
we had never heard of till we came to Canada,
and yet, so far as I know, there is nothing of
the kind in New England to be compared with
it. Most travelers in Canada would not hear of
it, though they might go so near as to hear it.
Since my return I find that in the topographical
description of the country mention is made of
"two or three romantic falls" on this stream,
though we saw and heard of but this one. Ask
the inhabitants respecting any stream, if there
is a fall on it, and they will perchance tell you
of something as interesting as Bashpish or the
Catskill, which no traveler has ever seen, or if
they have not found it, you may possibly trace
up the stream and discover it yourself. Falls
there are a drug; and we became quite dissi-

ST. ANNE 73

pated in respect to them. We had drank too
much of them. Beside these which I have re-
ferred to, there are a thousand other falls on
the St. Lawrence and its tributaries which I
have not seen nor heard of; and above all there
is one which I have heard of, called Niagara, so
that I think that this river must be the most
remarkable for its falls of any in the world.

At a house near the western boundary of
Chateau Richer, whose master was said to speak
a very little English, having recently lived at
Quebec, we got lodging for the night. As usual,
we had to go down a lane to get round to the
south side of the house where the door was,
away from the road. For these Canadian
houses have no front door, properly speaking.
Every part is for the use of the occupant exclu-
sively, and no part has reference to the traveler
or to travel. Every New England house, on
the contrary, has a front and principal door
opening to the great world, though it may be oii
the cold side, for it stands on the highway of
nations, and the road which runs by it comes
from the Old World and goes to the far West ;
but the Canadian's door opens into his back-
yard and farm alone, and the road which runs
behind his house leads only from the church of
one saint to that of another. We found a large
family, hired men, wife and children, just eat-

74 A YANKEE IN CANADA

ing their supper. They prepared some for us
afterwards. The hired meu were a merry crew
of short, black-eyed fellows, and the wife a thin-
faced, sharp-featured French Canadian woman.
Our host's English staggered us rather more
than any French we had heard yet; indeed, we
found that even we spoke better French than he
did English, and we concluded that a less crime
would be committed on the whole if we spoke
French with him, and in no respect aided or
abetted his attempts to speak English. We
had a long and merry chat with the family this
Sunday evening in their spacious kitchen.
While my companion smoked a pipe and par-
lez-vous'd with one party, I parleyed and ges-
ticulated to another. The whole family was
enKsted, and I kept a little girl writing what
was otherwise unintelligible. The geography
getting obscure, we called for chalk, and the
greasy oiled table-cloth having been wiped, —
for it needed no French, but only a sentence
from the universal language of looks on my
part, to indicate that it needed it, — we drew
the St. Lawrence, with its parishes, thereon,
and thenceforward went on swimmingly, by
turns handling the chalk and committing to the
table-cloth what would otherwise have been left
in a limbo of unintelligibility. This was greatly
to the entertainment of all parties. I was

ST, ANNE 75

amused to hear how much use they made of the
word oui in conversatiou with one another. Af-
ter repeated single insertions of it, one would
suddenly throw back his head at the same time
with his chair, and exclaim rapidly, ^^ Oui/ oui I
(mil ouil^^ like a Yankee driving pigs. Our
host told us that the farms thereabouts were
generally two acres or three hundred and sixty
French feet wide, by one and a half leagues, (?)
or a little more than four and a half of our miles
deep. This use of the word acre as long mea-
sure arises from the fact that the French acre
or arpent, the arpent of Paris, makes a square
of ten perches, of eighteen feet each on a side, a
Paris foot being equal to 1.06575 English feet.
He said that the wood was cut off about one
mile from the river. The rest was ^^bush," and
beyond that the "Queen's bush." Old as the
country is, each landholder boimds on the prim-
itive forest, and fuel bears no price. As I had
forgotten the French for sicMe^ they went out in
the evening to the barn and got one, and so
clenched the certainty of our understanding one
another. Then, wishing to learn if they used
the cradle, and not knowing any French word
for this instrument, I set up the knives and
forks on the blade of the sickle to represent
one ; at which they all exclaimed that they knew
and had used it. When andls were mentioned

76 A YANKEE IN CANADA

they went out in the dark and plucked some.
They were pretty good. They said they had
three kinds of plums growing wild,— blue,
white, and red, the two former much alike and
the best. Also they asked me if I would have
des pommes^ some apples, and got me some.
They were exceedingly fair and glossy, and it
was evident that there was no worm in them;
but they were as hard almost as a stone, as if
the season was too short to mellow them. We
had seen no soft and yellow apples by the road-
side. I declined eating one, much as I admired
it, observing that it would be good dans le
printemps^ in the spring. In the morning when
the mistress had set the eggs a-frying she
nodded to a thick-set, joUy-looking fellow, who
rolled up his sleeves, seized the long-handled
griddle, and commenced a series of revolutions
and evolutions with it, ever and anon tossing its
contents into the air, where they turned com-
pletely topsy-turvy and came down t'other side
up; and this he repeated till they were done.
That appeared to be his duty when eggs were
concerned. I did not chance to witness this
performance, but my companion did, and he
pronounced it a masterpiece in its way. This
man's farm, with the buildings, cost seven hun-
dred pounds ; some smaller ones, two hundred.
In 1827, Montmorenci County, to which the

ST. ANNE 77

Isle of Orleans has since been added, was nearly
as large as Massachusetts, being the eighth
county out of forty (in Lower Canada) in ex-
tent ; but by far the greater part still must con-
tinue to be waste land, lying as it were under
the walls of Quebec.

I quote these old statistics, not merely because
of the difficulty of obtaining more recent ones,
but also because I saw there so little evidence of
any recent growth. There were in this county,
at the same date, five Soman Catholic churches,
and no others, five cures and five presbyteries,
two schools, two corn-mills, four saw-mills, one
carding-mill,— no medical man, or notary or
lawyer, — five shopkeepers, four taverns (we
saw no sign of any, though, after a little hesita-
tion, we were sometimes directed to some undis-
tinguished hut as such), thirty artisans, and five
river crafts, whose tonuage amounted to sixty-
nine tons! This, notwithstanding that it has a
frontage of more than thirty miles on the river,
and the population is almost wholly confined to
its banks. This describes nearly enough what
we saw. But double some of these figures,
which, however, its growth will not warrant, and
you have described a poverty which not even its
severity of climate and ruggedness of soil will
suffice to account for. The principal produc-
tions were wheat, potatoes, oats, hay, peas, flax,

78 A YANKEE IN CANADA

maple-sugar, etc., etc. ; linen doth, or etoffe du
pay 8^ flannel, and homespun, or petite etoffe*

In Lower Canada, according to Bouchette,
there are two tenures, — the feudal and the
socage. Tenanciers, censitaires, or holders of
land en roture pay a small annual rent to the
seigneurs, to which ^^is added some articles of
provision, such as a couple of fowls, or a goose,
or a bushel of wheat." "They are also bound
to grind their com at the moulin banal, or
the lord's miU, where one fourteenth part of it
is taken for his use " as toll. He says that the
toll is one twelfth in the United States where
competition exists. It is not permitted to ex-
ceed one sixteenth in Massachusetts. But worse
than this monopolizing of mill rents is what are
called lods et ventes, or mutation fines, — ac-
cording to which the seigneur has "a right to a
twelfth part of the purchase-money of every es-
tate within his seigniory that changes its owner
by sale." This is over and above the sum paid
to the seller. In such cases, moreover, "the
lord possesses the droit de retrait, which is the
privilege of preemption at the highest bidden
price within forty days after the sale has taken
place," — a right which, however, is said to
be seldom exercised. "Lands held by Roman
Catholics are further subject to the payment to
their curates of one twenty-sixth part of all the

ST. ANNE 79

grain produced upon them, and to occasional as-
sessments for building and repairing churches,"
etc., — a tax to which they are not subject if the
proprietors change their faith; but they are not
the, less attached to their church in consequence.
There are, however, various modifications of the
feudal tenure. Under the socage tenure, which
is that of the townships or more recent settle-
ments, English, Irish, Scotch, and others, and
generally of Canada West, the landholder is
wholly unshackled by such conditions as I have
quoted, and ^4s bound to no other obligations
than those of allegiance to the king and obedi-
ence to the laws." Throughout Canada '^a
freehold of forty shillings yearly value, or the
payment of ten pounds rent anuually, is the
qualification for voters." In 1846 more than
one sixth of the whole population of Canada
East were qualified to vote for members of Par-
liament, — a greater proportion than enjoy a
similar privilege in the United States.

The population which we had seen the last
two days — I mean the habitans of Montmo-
renci County — appeared very inferior, intel-
lectually and even physically, to that of New
England. In some respects they were incredi-
bly filthy. It was evident that they had not
advanced since the settlement of the country,
that they were quite behind the age, and fairly

80 A YANKEE IN CANADA

represented their ancestors in Normandy a thou-
sand years ago. Even in respect to the com-
mon arts of life, they are not so far advanced as
a frontier town in the West three years old.
They have no money invested in railroad stock,
and probably never will have. If they have got
a French phrase for a railroad, it is as much as
you can expect of them. They are very far
from a revolution ; have no quarrel with Church
or State, but their vice and their virtue is con-
tent. As for annexation, they have never
dreamed of it; indeed, they have not a clear
idea what or where the States are. The Eng-
lish government has been remarkably liberal to
its Catholic subjects in Canada, permitting them
to wear their own fetters, both political and re-
ligious, as far as was possible for subjects.
Their government is even too good for them.
Parliament passed "an act [in 182f5] to provide
for the extinction of feudal and seigniorial rights
and burdens on lands in Lower Canada, and for
the gradual conversion of those tenures into the
tenure of free and common socage," etc. But
as late as 1831, at least, the design of the act was
likely to be frustrated, owing to the reluctance
of the seigniors and peasants. It has been ob-
served by another that the French Canadians do
not extend nor perpetuate their influence. The
British, Irish, and other immigrants, who have

ST. ANNE 81

settled the townships, are found to have imitated
the American settlers and not the French.
They reminded me in this of the Indians, whom
they were slow to displace, and to whose habits
of life they themselves more readily conformed
than the Indians to theirs. The Governor-Gen-
eral Denouville remarked, in 1686, that some
had long thought that it was necessary to bring
the Indians near them in order to Frenchify
(Jrandser) them, but that they had every rea-
son to think themselves in an error; for those
who had come near them and were even col-
lected in villages in the midst of the colony had
not become French, but the French who had
haunted them had become savages. Kalm said,
"Though many nations imitate the French cus-
toms, yet I observed, on the contrary, that the
French in Canada, in many respects, follow the
customs of the Indians, with whom they con-
verse every day. They make use of the tobacco-
pipes, shoes, garters, and girdles of the Indians.
They follow the Indian way of making war with
exactness; they mix the same things with to-
bacco [he might have said that both French and
English learned the use itself of this weed of the
Indian]; they make use of the Indian bark-
boats, and row them in the Indian way; they
wrap square pieces of cloth round their feet
instead of stockings; and have adopted many

82 A YANKEE IN CANADA

other Indian fashions." Thus, while the de-
scendants of the Pilgrims are teaching the Eng-
lish to make pegged boots, the descendants of
the French in Canada are wearing the Indian
moccasin still. The French, to their credit be
it said, to a certain extent respected the Indians
as a separate and independent people, and spoke
of them and contrasted themselves with them as
the English have never done. They not only
went to war with them as allies, but they lived
at home with them as neighbors. In 1627 the
French king declared ^Hhat the descendants of
the French, settled in" New France, "and the
savages who should be brought to the knowledge
of the faith, and should make profession of it,
should be counted and reputed French bom
(Naturds I^'rangois); and as such could emigrate
to France, when it seemed good to them, and
there acquire, will, inherit, etc., etc., without
obtaining letters of naturalization." When the
English had possession of Quebec, in 1630, the
Indians, attempting to practice the same famil-
iarity with them that they had with the French,
were driven out of their houses with blows;
which accident taught them a difference between
the two races, and attached them yet more to
the French. The impression made on me was
that the French Canadians were even sharing
the fate of the Indians, or at least gradually

ST. ANNE 88

disappearing in what is called the Saxon cur-
rent.

The English did not come to America from a
mere love of adventure, nor to truck with or
convert the savages, nor to hold offices under
the crown, as the French to a great extent did,
but to live in earnest and with freedom. The
latter overran a great extent of country, selling
strong water, and collecting its furs, and con-
verting its inhabitants,— or at least baptizing
its dying infants (mfans moribonda)^ — with-
out improving it. First, went the coureur de
hois with the eau de vie; then followed, if he
did not precede, the heroic missionary with the
eau d'immortalite. It was freedom to hunt,
and fish, and convert, not to work, that they
sought. Hontan says that the coureurs de hois
lived like sailors ashore. In no part of the
seventeenth century could the French be said to
have had a foothold in Canada; they held only
by the fur of the wild animals which they were
exterminating. To enable the poor seigneurs to
get their living, it was permitted by a decree
passed in the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, in
1685, ^^ to all nobles and gentlemen settled in
Canada, to engage in commerce, without being
called to account or reputed to have done any-
thing derogatory." The reader can infer to
what extent they had engaged in agriculture,

84 A YANKEE IN CANADA

and how their farms must have shone by this
time. The New England youth, on the other
hand, were never coureurs de bois nor voyageurs^
but backwoodsmen and sailors rather. Of all
nations the English undoubtedly have proved
hitherto that they had the most business here.

Yet I am not sure but I have most sympathy
with that spirit of adventure which distinguished
the French and Spaniards of those days, and
made them especially the explorers of the
American Continent, — which so early carried
the former to the Great Lakes and the Missis-
sippi on the north, and the latter to the same
river on the south. It was long before our
frontiers reached their settlements in the West.
So far as inland discovery was concerned, the
adventurous spirit of the English was that of
sailors who land but for a day, and their enter-
prise the enterprise of traders.

There was apparently a greater equality of
condition among the habitans of Montmorenci
County than in New England. They are an
almost exclusively agricultural, and so far in-
dependent population, each family producing
nearly all the necessaries of life for itself. If
the Canadian wants energy, perchance he pos-
sesses those virtues, social and others, which the
Yankee lacks, in which case he cannot be re-
garded as a poor man.

CHAPTER IV

THE WALLS OP QUEBEC

Afteb spending the night at a farm-house in
Chateau Richer, about a dozen miles northeast
of Quebec, we set out on our return to the city.
We stopped at the next house, a picturesque old
stone mill, over the Chipre^ — for so the name
sounded, — such as you will nowhere see in the
States, and asked the millers the age of the
mill. They went upstairs to call the master;
but the crabbed old miser asked why we wanted
to know, and would tell us only for some com-
pensation. I wanted French to give him a
piece of my mind. I had got enough to talk on
a pinch, but not to quarrel, so I had to come
away, looking all I would have said. This was
the utmost incivility we met with in Canada.
In Beauport, within a few miles of Quebec, we
turned aside to look at a church which was just
being completed, — a very large and handsome
edifice of stone, with a green bough stuck in its
gable, of some significance to Catholics. The
comparative wealth of the Church in this coun-
try was apparent; for in this village we did not

86 A YANKEE' JN CANADA

see one good house besides. They were all
humble cottages ; and yet this appeared to me a
more imposing structure than any church in
Boston. But I am no judge of these things.

Reentering Quebec through St. John's Gate,
we took a caleche in Market Square for the
Falls of the Chaudiere, about nine miles south-
west of the city, for which we were to pay so
much, beside forty sous for tolls. The driver,
as usual, spoke French only. The number of
these vehicles is very great for so small a town.
They are like one of our chaises that has lost its
top, only stouter and longer in the body, with a
seat for the driver where the dasher is with us,
and broad leather ears on each side to protect
the riders from the wheel and keep children
from falling out. They had an easy jaunting
look, which, as our hours were numbered, per-
suaded us to be riders. We met with them on
every road near Quebec these days, each with
its complement of two inquisitive-looking for-
eigners and a Canadian driver, the former evi-
dently enjoying their novel experience, for com-
monly it is only the horse whose language yoii
do not understand; but they were one remove
further from him by the intervention of an
equally unintelligible driver. We crossed the
St. Lawrence to Point Levi in a French Cana-
dian ferry-boat, which was inconvenient and

THE WALLS dF QUEBEC 87

dirty, and managed with great noise and bustle.
The current was jery strong and tumultuous,
and the boat tossed enough to make some sick,
though it was only a mile across ; yet the wind
was not to be compared with that of the day be-
fore, and we saw that the Canadians had a good
excuse for not taking us over to the Isle of
Orleans in a pirogue, however shiftless they may
be for not having provided any other convey-
ance. The route which we took to the Chau-
diere did not afford us those views of Quebec
which we had expected, and the country and in-
habitants appeared less interesting to a traveler
than those we had seen. The Falls of the
Chaudiere are three miles from its mouth on the
south side of the St. Lawrence. Though they
were the largest which I saw in Canada, I was
not proportionately interested by them, proba-
bly from satiety. I did not see any peculiar
propriety in the name Chaudiere^ or caldron.
I saw here the most brilliant rainbow that I
ever imagined. It was just across the stream
below the precipice, formed on the mist which
this tremendous fall produced ; and I stood on a
level with the key-stone of its arch. It was not
a few faint prismatic colors merely, but a full
semicircle, only four or five rods in diameter,
though as wide as usual, so intensely bright as
to pain the eye, and apparently as substantial

88 A YANKEE IN CANADA

as an arch of stone. It changed its position
and colors as we moved, and was the brighter
because the sun shone so clearly and the mist
was so thick. Evidently a picture painted on
mist for the men and animals that came to the
falls to look at; but for what special purpose
beyond this, I know not. At the farthest point
in this ride, and when most inland, unexpectedly
at a turn in the road we descried the frowning
citadel of Quebec in the horizon, like the beak
of a bird of prey. We returned by the river
road under the bank, which is very high, abrupt,
and rocky. When we were opposite to Quebec,
I was surprised to see that in the Lower To¥m,
under the shadow of the rock, the lamps were
lit, twinkling not unlike crystals in a cavern,
while the citadel high above, and we, too, on
the south shore, were in broad daylight. As
we were too late for the ferry-boat that night,
we put up at a maison de pension at Point
Levi. The usual two-story stove was here
placed against an opening in the partition,
shaped like a fireplace, and so warmed several
rooms. We could not understand their French
here very well, but the potage was just like
what we had had before. There were many
small chambers with doorways, but no doors.
The walls of our chamber, all around and over-
head, were neatly ceiled, and the timbers cased

THE WALLS OF QUEBEC 89

with wood nnpainted. The pillows were check-
ered and tasseled, and the usual long-pointed
red woolen or worsted night-cap was placed on
each. I pulled mine out to see how it was
made. It was in the form of a double cone, one
end tucked into the other; just such, it ap-
peared, as I saw men wearing all day in the
streets. Probably I should have put it on if
the cold had been then, as it is sometimes there,
thirty or forty degrees below zero.

When we landed at Quebec the next morning
a man lay on his back on the wharf, apparently
dying, in the midst of a crowd and directly in
the path of the horses, groaning, " O ma con-
science t^^ I thought that he pronounced his
French more distinctly than any I heard, as if
the dying had already acquired the accents of a
universal language. Having secured the only
unengaged berths in the Lord Sydenham
steamer, which was to leave Quebec before sun-
down, and being resolved, now that I had seen
somewhat of the country, to get an idea of the
city, I proceeded to walk round the Upper
Town, or fortified portion, which is two miles
and three quarters in circuit, alone, as near as
I could get to the cliff and the walls, like a rat
looking for a hole; going round by the south-
west, where there is but a single street between
the cliff and the water, and up the long wooden

90 A YANKEE IN CANADA

stairs, through the suburbs northward to the
King's Woody ard, which I thought must have
been a long way from his fireplace, and imder
the cliffs of the St. Charles, where the drains
issue under the walls, and the walls are loop-
holed for musketry ; so returning by Mountain
Street and Prescott Gate to the Upper Town.
Having found my way by an obscure passage
near the St. Louis Gate to the glacis on the
north of the citadel proper, — I believe that I
was the only visitor then in the city who got in
there, — I enjoyed a prospect nearly as good as
from within the citadel itself, which I had ex-
plored some days before. As I walked on the
glacis I heard the sound of a bagpipe from the
soldiers' dwellings in the rock, and was further
soothed and affected by the sight of a soldier's
cat walking up a elected plank into a high loop-
hole, designed for mus-catry^ as serene as Wis-
dom herself, and with a gracefully waving mo-
tion of her tail, as if her ways were ways of
pleasantness and all her paths were peace.
Scaling a slat fence, where a small force might
have checked me, I got out of the esplanade
into the Governor's Garden, and read the well-
known inscription on Wolfe and Montcalm's
monument, which for saying much in little, and
that to the purpose, undoubtedly deserved the
prize medal which it received : —

THE WALLS OF QUEBEC 91

MOBT£M . VIBTU8 . COMMUNEM .

FAMAM . HISTOBIA .

MONUMENTUM . P08TEBITA8 .

DEBIT.

Valor gave them one death, history one fame,
posterity one monument. The. Government
Garden has for nosegays, amid kitchen vegeta-
bles, beside the conmion garden flowers, the
usual complement of cannon directed toward
some future and possible enemy. I then re-
turned up St. Louis Street to the esplanade and
ramparts there, and went round the Upper
Town once more, though I was very tired, this
time on the inside of the wall; for I knew that
the wall was the main thing in Quebec, and had
cost a great deal of money, and therefore I must
make the most of it. In fact, these are the only
remarkable walls we have in North America,
though we have a good deal of Virginia fence,
it is true. Moreover, I cannot say but I yielded
in some measure to the soldier instinct, and,
having but a short time to spare, thought it best
to examine the wall thoroughly, that I might be
the better prepared if I should ever be called
that way again in the service of my country. I
committed all the gates to memory, in their or-
der, which did not cost me so much trouble as
it would have done at the hundred-gated city.

92 A YANKEE IN CANADA

there being only five; nor were they so hard to
remember as those seven of Boeotian Thebes;
and, moreover, I thought that, if seven cham-
pions were enough against the latter, one would
be enough against Quebec, though he bore for
all armor and device only an umbrella and a
bimdle. I took the nunneries as I went, for I ]

had learned to distinguish them by the blinds ;
and I observed also the foundling hospitals and
the convents, and whatever was attached to, or
in the vicinity of the walls. All the rest I
omitted, as naturally as one would the inside of
an inedible shell-fish. These were the only
pearls, and the wall the only mother-of-pearl
for me. Quebec is chiefly famous for the thick-
ness of its parietal bones. The technical terms
of its conchology may stagger a beginner a lit-
tle at first, such as hardieue^ esplanade^ glacis^
ravelin^ cavalier, etc., etc., but with the aid of
a comprehensive dictionary you soon learn the
nature of your ground. I was surprised at the
extent of the artillery barracks, built so long
a^go, — Casernes Nouvelles, they used to be
called, — nearly six hundred feet in length by
forty in depth, where the sentries, like peripa-
tetic philosophers, were so absorbed in thought
as not to notice me when I passed in and out at
the gates. Within are "small arms of every
description, sufficient for the equipment of

THE WALLS OF QUEBEC 93

twenty thousand men," so arranged as to give a
startling coup d*oeU to strangers. I did not
enter, not wishing to get a black eye ; for they
are said to be ^4n a state of complete repair
and readiness for immediate use." Here, for a
short time, I lost sight of the wall, but I recov-
ered it again on emerging from the barrack
yard. There I met with a Scotchman who ap-
peared to have business with the wall, like my-
self; and, being thus mutually drawn together
by a similarity of tastes, we had a little conver-
sation 8uh mcenihus^ that is, by an angle of the
wall, which sheltered us. He lived about thirty
miles northwest of Quebec ; had been nineteen
years in the country; said he was disappointed
that he was not brought to America after all,
but found himself still under British rule and
where his own language was not spoken; that
many Scotch, Irish, and English were disap-
pointed in like manner, and either went to the
States, or pushed up the river to Canada West,
nearer to the States, and where their language
was spoken. He talked of visiting the States
sometime; and, as he seemed ignorant of geo-
graphy, I warned him that it was one thing to
visit the State of Massachusetts, and another to
visit the State of California. He said it was
colder there than usual at that season, and he
was lucky to have brought his thick togue, or

94 A YANKEE IN CANADA

frock-coat, with him; thought it would snow,
and then be pleasant and warm. That is the
way we are always thinking. However, his
wordB were music to me in my thin hat and
sack.

At the ramparts on the cliff near the old Par-
liament House I counted twenty-four thirty-
two-pounders in a row, pointed over the harbor,
with their balls piled pyramid-wise between
them, — there are said to be in all about one
hundred and eighty guns mounted at Quebec,
— all which were faithfully kept dusted by offi-
cials, in accordance with the motto, ^^In time of
peace prepare for war; " but I saw no prepara-
tions for peace; she was plainly an uninvited
guest.

Having thus completed the circuit of this
fortress, both within and without, I went no
farther by the wall for fear that I should
become wall-eyed. However, I think that I
deserve to be made a member of the Royal
Sappers and Miners.

In short, I observed everywhere the most per-
fect arrangements for keeping a wall in order,
not even permitting the lichens to grow on it,
which some think an ornament ; but then I saw
no cultivation nor pasturing within it to pay for
the outlay, and cattle were strictly forbidden to
feed on the glacis under the severest penalties.

THE WALLS OF QUEBEC 95

Where the dogs get their milk I don't know,
and I fear it is bloody at best.

The citadel of Quebec says, "I vyill live here,
and you shan't prevent me." To which you
return, that you have not the slightest objection ;
live and let live. The Martello toWers looked,
for all the world, exactly like abandoned wind-
mills, which had not had a grist to grind these
hundred years. Indeed, the whole castle here
was a "foDy," — England's folly, — and, in
more senses than one, a castle in the air. The
inhabitants and the government are gradually
waking up to a sense of this truth ; for I heard
something said about their abandoning the wall
around the Upper Town, and confining the for-
tifications to the citadel of forty acres. Of
course they will finally reduce their intrench -
ments to the circumference of their own brave
hearts.

The most modem fortifications have an air of
antiquity about them; they have the aspect of
ruins in better or worse repair from the day
they are built, because they are not really the
work of this age. The very place where the
soldier resides has a peculiar tendency to become
old and dilapidated, as the word barrack im-
plies. I couple all fortifications in my mind
with the dismantled Spanish forts to be found
in so many parts of the world; and if in any

96 A YANKEE IN CANADA

place they are not actually dismantled, it is be-
cause that there the intellect of the inhabitants
is dismantled. The commanding officer of an
old fort near Valdivia in South America, when
a traveler remarked to him that, with one dis-
charge, his ' gun-carriages would certainly fall
to pieces, gravely replied, "No, I am sure, sir,
they would stand two." Perhaps the guns of
Quebec would stand three. Such structures
carry us back to the Middle Ages, the siege of
Jerusalem, and St. Jean d'Acre, and the days
of the Bucaniers. In the armory of the citadel
they showed me a clumsy implement, long since
useless, which they called a Lombard gun. I
thought that their whole citadel was such a
Lombard gun, fit object for the musemns of the
curious. Such works do not consist with the
development of the intellect. Huge stone
structures of all kinds, both in their erection
and by their influence when erected, rather op-
press than liberate the mind. * They are tombs
for the souls of men, as frequently for their
bodies also. The sentinel with his musket be-
side a man with his umbrella is spectral. There
is not sufficient reason for his existence. Does
my friend there, with a bullet resting on half an
ounce of powder, think that he needs that argu-
ment in conversing with me? The fort was the
first institution that was founded here, and it is

(

THE WALLS OF QUEBEC 97

amusing to read in Champlain how assiduously
they worked at it almost from the first day of
the settlement. The founders of the colony
thought this an excellent site for a wall, — and
no doubt it was a better site, in some respects,
for a wall than for a city, — but it chanced that
a city got behind it. It chanced, too, that a
Lower Town got before it, and clung like an
oyster to the outside of the crags, as you may
see at low tide. It is as if you were to come to
a country village surrounded by palisades in the
old Indian fashion, — interesting only as a relic
of antiquity and barbarism. A fortified town is
like a man cased in the heavy armor of an-
tiquity, with a horse-load of broadswords and
small arms slung to him, endeavoring to go
about his business. Or is this an indispensable
machinery for the good government of the coim-
try? The inhabitants of California succeed
pretty well, and are doing better and better
every day, without any such institution. What
use has this fortress served, to look at it even
from the soldiers' point of view? At first the
French took care of it; yet Wolfe sailed by it
with impunity, and took the town of Quebec
without experiencing any hindrance at last from
its fortifications. They were only the bone for
which the parties fought. Then the English
began to take care of it. So of any fort in the

98 A YANKEE IN CANADA

world, — that in Boston Harbor, for instance.
We shall at length hear that an enemy sailed
by it in the night, for it cannot sail itself, and
both it and its inhabitants are always benighted.
How often we read that the enemy occupied a
position which commanded the old, and so the
fort was evacuated. Have not the school-house
and the printing-press occupied a position which
commands such a fort as this?

However, this is a ruin kept in remarkably
good repair. There are some eight hundred or
thousand men there to exhibit it. One regi-
ment goes bare-legged to increase the attraction.
If you wish to study the muscles of the leg
about the knee, repair to Quebec. This uni-
versal exhibition in Canada of the tools and
sinews of war reminded me of the keeper of a
menagerie showing his animals' claws. It was
the English leopard showing his claws. Always
the royal something or other ; as at the menagerie,
the Boyal Bengal Tiger. Silliman states that
"the cold is so intense in the winter nights, par-
ticularly on Cape Diamond, that the sentinels
cannot stand it more than one hour, and are re-
lieved at the expiration of that time;" "and
even, as it is said, at much shorter intervals, in
case of the most extreme cold." What a natu-
ral or unnatural fool must that soldier be, — to
say nothing of his government, — who, when

THE WALLS OF QUEBEC 99

qnicksilver is freezing and blood is ceasing to
be quick, will stand to have bis face frozen,
watching tbe walls of Quebec, though, so far as
they are concerned, both honest and dishonest
men all the world over have been in their beds
nearly half a century, — or at least for that
space travelers have visited Quebec only as they
would read history. I shall never again wake
up in a colder night than usual, but I shall
think how rapidly the sentinels are relieving
one another on the walls of Quebec, their quick-
silver being aU frozen, as if apprehensive that
some hostile Wolfe may even then be scaling
the Heights of Abraham, or some persevering
Arnold about to issue from the wilderness;
some Malay or Japanese, perchance, coming
round by the northwest coast, have chosen that
moment to assault the citadel ! Why, I should
as soon expect to find the sentinels still relieving
one another on the walls of Nineveh, which have
so long been buried to the world. What a
troublesome thing a wall is ! I thought it was
to defend me, and not I it ! Of course, if they
had no wall, they would not need to have any
sentinels.

You might venture to advertise this farm as
well fenced with substantial stone walls (saying
nothing about the eight hundred Highlanders
and Boyal Irish who are required to keep them

100 A YANKEE IN CANADA

from toppling down); stock and tools to go with
the land if desired. But it would not be wise
for the seller to exhibit his farm-book.

Why should Canada, wild and unsettled as it
is, impress us as an older country than the
States, unless because her institutions are old?
All things appeared to contend there, as I have
implied, with a certain rust of antiquity, such
as forms on old armor and iron guns, — the rust
of conventions and formalities. It is said that
the metallic roofs of Montreal and Quebec keep
sound and bright for forty years in some cases.
But a the rust was not on the tinned roofs and
spires, it was on the inhabitants and their insti-
tutions. Yet the work of burnishing goes
briskly forward. I imagined that the govern-
ment vessels at the wharves were laden with
rotten-stone and oxalic acid, — that is what the
first ship from England in the spring comes
freighted with, — and the hands of the colonial
legislature are cased in wash-leather. The
principal exports must be gunny bags, verdi-
gris, and iron rust. Those who first built
this fort, coming from Old France with the
memory and tradition of feudal days and cus-
toms weighing on them, were unquestionably
behind their age; and those who now inhabit
and repair it are behind their ancestors or pre-
decessors. Those old chevaliers thought that

THE WALLS OF QUEBEC 101

they could transplant the feudal system to
America. It has been set out, but it has not
thriven. Notwithstanding that Canada was set-
tled first, and, unlike New England, for a long
series of years enjoyed the fostering care of
the mother country; notwithstanding that, as
Charlevoix tells us, it had more of the ancient
noblesse among its early settlers than any other
of the French colonies, and perhaps than all
the others together, — there are in both the
Canadas but 600,000 of French descent to-day,
— about half so many as the population of
Massachusetts. The whole population of both
Canadas is but about 1,700,000 Canadians,
English, Irish, Scotch, Indians, and all, put to-
gether! Samuel Laing, in his essay on the
Northmen, to whom especially, rather than the
Saxons, he refers the energy and indeed the ex-
cellence of the English character, observes that,
when they occupied Scandinavia, "each man
possessed his lot of land without reference to,
or acknowledgment of, any other man, — with-
out any local chief to whom his military service
or other quit-rent for his land was due, — with-
out tenure from, or duty or obligation to, any
superior, real or fictitious, except the general
sovereign. The individual settler held his land,
as his descendants in Norway still express it, by
the same right as the King held his crown.

. * " * •■

* • • • • « .

, • , •••

••• • •-•• "•• • •

• ••• ••,-,

102 A YANKEE IN CANADA

by udal right, or adel, — that is, noble right."
The French have occupied Caoada, not vdally^
or by noble right, but feudally^ or by ignoble
right. They are a nation of peasants.

It was evident that, both on account of the
feudal system and the aristocratic government,
a private man was not worth so much in Canada
as in the United States; and, if your wealth in
any measure consists in manliness, in original-
ity, and independence, you had better stay here.
How could a peaceable, freethinking man live
neighbor to the Forty-ninth Regiment? A New
Englander would naturally be a bad citizen,
probably a rebel, there, — certainly if he were
already a rebel at home. I suspect that a poor
man who is not servile is a much rarer phenome-
non there and in England than in the Northern
United States. An Englishman, methinks, —
not to speak of other European nations, — habit-
ually regards himself merely as a constituent
part of the English nation ; he is a member of
the royal regiment of Englishmen, and is proud
of his company, as he has reason to be proud of
it. But an American — one who has made a
tolerable use of his opportunities — cares, com-
paratively, little about such things, and is ad-
vantageously nearer to the primitive and the
ultimate condition of man in these respects. It
is a government, that English one, — like most

THE WALLS OF QUEBEC 108

other European ones, — that cannot afford to
be forgotten, as you would naturally forget it ;
under which one cannot be wholesomely neg-
lected, and grow up a man and not an English-
man merely, — cannot be a poet even without
danger of being made poet-laureate ! Give me
a country where it is the most natural thing in
the world for a government that does not under-
stand you to let you alone. One would say that
a true Englishman could speculate only within
bounds. (It is true the Americans have proved
that they, in more than one sense, can specu-
late without bounds.) He has to pay his re-
spects to so many things, that, before he knows it,
he may have paid away all he is worth. What
makes the United States government, on the
whole, more tolerable, — I mean for us lucky
white men, — is the fact that there is so much
less of government with us. Here it is only once
in a month or a year that a man needs remem-
ber that institution ; and those who go to Con-
gress can play the game of the Kilkenny cats
there without fatal consequences to those who
stay at home, — their term is so short ; but in
Canada you are reminded of the government
every day. It parades itself before you. It is
not content to be the servant, but will be the
master; and every day it goes out to the Plains
of Abraham or to the Champ de Mars and ex-

104 A YANKEE IN CANADA

hibits itself and its tools. Everywhere there
appeared an attempt to make and to preserve
trivial and otherwise transient distinctions. In
the streets of Montreal and Quebec you met not
only with soldiers in red, and shuffling priests
in unmistakable black and white, with Sisters
of Charity gone into mourning for their de-
ceased relative, — not to mention the nuns of
various orders depending on the fashion of a
tear, of whom you heard, — but youths belong-
ing to some seminary or other, wearing coats
edged with white, who looked as if their ex-
panding hearts were already repressed with a
piece of tape. In short, the inhabitants of
Canada appeared to be suffering between two
fires, — the soldiery and the priesthood.

CHAPTER V

THE SCENERY OP QUEBEC; AND THE BIVER

ST. LAWRENCE

About twelve o'clock this day, being in the
Lower Town, I looked up at the signal-gun by
the flag-staff on Cape Diamond, and saw a sol-
dier up in the heavens there making prepara-
tions to fire it, — both he and the gun in bold
relief against the sky. Soon after, being
warned by the boom of the gun to look up
again, there was only the cannon in the sky,
the smoke just blowing away from it, as if the
soldier, having touched it off, had concealed
himself for effect, leaving the sound to echo
grandly from shore to shore, and far up and
down the river. This answered the purpose of
a dinner-horn.

There are no such restaurateurs in Quebec
or Montreal as there are in Boston. I hunted
an hour or two in vain in this town to find one,
till I lost my appetite. In one house, called a
restaurateur, where lunches were advertised, I
found only tables covered with bottles and
glasses innumerable, containing apparently a

106 A YANKEE IN CANADA

sample of every liquid that has been known
since the earth dried up after the flood, but no
scent of solid food did I perceive gross enough
to excite a hungry mouse. In short, I saw
nothmg to tempt me there, but a large map of
Canada against the wall. In another place I
once more got as far as the bottles, and then
ashed for a bill of fare; was told to walk up
stairs; had no bill of fare, nothing but fare.
"Have you any pies or puddings?" I inquired,
for I am obliged to keep my savageness in
check by a low diet. "No, sir; we've nice
mutton-chop, roast beef, beef -steak, cutlets,"
and so on. A burly Englishman, who was in
the* midst of the siege of a piece of roast beef,
and of whom I have never had a front view to
this day, turned half round, with his mouth
half full, and remarked, "You'll find no pies
nor puddings in Quebec, sir; they don't make
any here." I found that it was even so, and
therefore bought some musty cake and some
fruit in the open market-place. This market-
place by the water-side, where the old women
sat by their tables in the open air, amid a dense
crowd jabbering all languages, was the best
place in Quebec to observe the people ; and the
ferry-boats, contmually coming and going with
their motley crews and cargoes, added much to
the entertainment. I also saw them getting

QUEBEC AND THE ST. LAWRENCE 107

water from the river, for Quebec is supplied
with water by cart and ban-el. This city im-
pressed me as wholly foreign and French, for
I scarcely heard the sound of the English lan-
guage in the streets. More than three fifths of
the inhabitants are of French origin; and if

^ the traveler did not visit the fortifications par-

ticularly, he might not be reminded that the
English have any foothold here; and, in any
case, if he looked no farther than Quebec, they
would appear to have planted themselves in

k Canada only as they have in Spain at Gibral-

tar; and he who plants upon a rock cannot
expect much increase. The novel sights and
sounds by the water-side made me think of such
ports as Boulogne, Dieppe, Rouen, and Havre
de Grac6, which I have never seen ; but I have
no doubt that they present similar scenes. I
was much amused from first to last with the
sounds made by the charette and caleche driv-
ers. It was that part of their foreign language
that you heard the most of, — the French they
talked to their horses, — and which they talked
the loudest. It was a more novel sound to me
than the French of conversation. The streets
resounded with the cries, ^^ Qui donc/^*
^''Marche tbt!^^ I suspect that many of our
horses which came from Canada would prick
up their ears at these sounds. Of the shops, I

108 A YANKEE IN CANADA

was most attracted by those where furs and In-
dian works were sold, as containing articles of
genuine Canadian manufacture. I have been
Sd that Wo townsmen of mine, who were in-
terested in horticulture, traveling once in Can-
ada, and being in Quebec, thought it would be
a good opportunity to obtain seeds of the real
Canada crook-neck squash. So they went into
a shop where such things were advertised, and
inquired for the same. The shopkeeper had
the very thing they wanted. ''But are you
sure," they asked, "that these are the genuine
Canada crook-neck?" "Oh, yes, gentlemen,"
answered he, "they are a lot which I have re-
ceived directly from Boston." I resolved that
my Canada crook-neck seeds should be such as
had grown in Canada.

Too much has not been said about the scenery
of Quebec. The fortifications of Cape Diamond
are omnipresent. They preside, they frown
over the river and surrounding country. You
travel ten, twenty, thirty miles up or down the
river's banks, you ramble fifteen miles amid the
hills on either side, and then, when you have
long since forgotten them, perchance slept on
them by the way, at a turn of the road or of
your body, there they are still, with their geo-
metry against the sky. The child that is born
and brought up thirty miles distant, and has

QUEBEC AND THE ST. LA WHENCE 109

never traveled to the city, reads his country's
history, sees the level lines of the citadel amid
the cloud-built citadels in the western horizon,
and is told that that is Quebec. No wonder if
Jacques Cartier's pilot exclaimed in Norman
French, Que heel — "What a beakl" — when
he saw this cape, as some suppose. Every
modern traveler involuntarily uses a similar ex-
pression. Particularly it is said that its sud-
den apparition on turning Point Levi makes a
memorable impression on him who arrives by
water. The view from Cape Diamond has been
compared by European travelers with the most
remarkable views of a similar kind in Europe,
such as from Edinburgh Castle, Gibraltar,
Cintra, and others, and preferred by many. A
main peculiarity in this, compared with other
views which I have beheld, is that it is from the
ramparts of a fortified city, and not from a soli-
tary and majestic river cape alone that this view
is obtained. I assgciate the beauty of Quebec
with the steel-like and flashing air, which may
be peculiar to that season of the year, in which
the blue flowers of the succory and some late
golden-rods and buttercups on the summit of
Cape Diamond were almost my only compan-
ions, — the former bluer than the heavens they
faced. Yet even I yielded in some degree to
the influence of historical associations, and

110 A YANKEE IN CANADA

.found it hard to attend to the geology of Cape
Diamond or the botany of the Plains of Abra-
ham. I still remember the harbor far beneath
me, sparkling like silver in the sun, — the an-
swering highlands of Point Levi on the south-
east, — the frowning Cap Tourmente abruptly
bounding the seaward view? far in the northeast,
— the villages of Lorette and Charlesbourg on
the north, — and further west the distant Val
Cartier, sparkling with white cottages, hardly
removed by distance through the clear air, —
not to mention a few blue mountains along the
horizon in that direction. You look out from
the ramparts of the citadel beyond the frontiers
of civilization. Yonder small group of hills,
according to the guide-book, forms "the portal
of the wilds which are trodden only by the feet
of the Indian hunters as far as Hudson's Bay."
It is but a few years since Bouchette declared
that the country ten leagues north of the British
capital of North America was as little known as
the middle of Africa. Thus the citadel under
my feet, and all historical associations, were
swept away again by an influence from the wilds
and from nature, as if the beholder had read
her history, — an influence which, like the
Great River itself, flowed from the Arctic fast-
nesses and Western forests with irresistible tide
over all.

QUEBEC AND THE ST. LA WRENCE 111

The most interesting object in Canada to me
was the Siver St. Lawrence, known far and
wide, and for. centuries, as the Great Biver.
Cartier, its discoverer, sailed up it as far as
Montreal in 1535, — nearly a century before
the coming of the Pilgrims ; and I have seen a
pretty accurate map of it so far, containing the
city of "Hochelaga" and the river "Saguenay,"
in Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum^
printed at Antwerp in 1675, — the first edition
having appeared in 1570, — in which the fa-
mous cities of "Nonmibega" and "Orsinora"
stand on the rough-blocked continent where
New England is to-day, and the fabulous but
unfortunate Isle of Demons, and Frislant, and
others, lie off and on in the unfrequented sea,
some of them prowling near what is now the
course of the Cunard steamers. In this ponder-
ous folio of the "Ptolemy of his age," said to
be the first general atlas published after the
revival of the sciences in Europe, only one page
of which is devoted to the topography of the
Novus Orbis^ the St. Lawrence is the only
large river, whether drawn from fancy or from
observation, on the east side of North Amer-
ica. It was famous in Europe before the other
rivers of North America were heard of, notwith-
standing that the mouth of the Mississippi is
said to have been discovered first, and its stream

112 A YANKEE IN CANADA

was reached by Soto not loDg after; but the
St. Lawrence had attracted settlers to its cold
shores long before the Mississippi, or even the
Hudson, was known to the world. Schoolcraft
was misled by Gallatin into saying that Nar-
vaez discovered the Mississippi. De Vega does
not say so. The first explorers declared that
the summer in that country was as warm as
France, and they named one of the bays in the
Gxdf of St. Lawrence the Bay of Chaleur, or of
warmth ; but they said nothing about the winter
being as cold as Greenland. In the manuscript
account of Cartier's second voyage, attributed
by some to that navigator himself, it is called
"the greatest river, without comparison, that is
known to have ever been seen." The savages
told him that it was the "cAemire du Canada^^^
— the highway to Canada, — "which goes so
far that no man had ever been to the end that
they had heard." The Saguenay, one of its
tributaries, which the panorama has made
known to New England within three years, is
described by Cartier, in 1535, and still more
particularly by Jean Alphonse, in 1542, who
adds, "I think that this river comes from the
sea of Cathay, for in this place there issues a
strong current, and there runs there a terrible
tide." The early explorers saw many whales
and other sea-monsters far up the St. Law-

QUEBEC AND THE ST. LAWRENCE 113

rence. Champlain, in his map, represents a
whale spouting in the harbor of Quebec, three
hundred and sixty miles from what is called the
mouth of the river; and Charlevoix takes his
reader to the summit of Cape Diamond to see
the "porpoises, white as snow," sporting on the
surface of the harbor of Quebec. And Boucher
says in 1664, "from there (Tadoussac) to Mon-
treal is found a great quantity of Marsouins
hlancs.^^ Several whales have been taken
pretty high up the river since I was there. P.
A. Gosse, in his "Canadian Naturalist," p. 171
(London, 1840), speaks of "the white dolphin
of the St. Lawrence (Ddphinus Canadensis),^^
as considered different from those of the sea.
"The Natural History Society of Montreal of-
fered a prize, a few years ago, for an essay on
the Cetacea of the St. Lawrence, which was, I
believe, handed in." In Champlain's day it was
commonly called "the Great River of Canada."
More than one nation has claimed it. In Ogil-
by's "America of 1670," in the map JVbvi
BelgiU it is called "De Groote Eivier van Niew
Nederlandt." It bears different names in dif-
ferent parts of its course, as it flows through
what were formerly the territories of different
nations. From the Gulf to Lake Ontario it is
called at present the St. Lawrence ; from Mon-
treal to the same place it is frequently called

i I

114 A YANKEE IN CANADA

the Cateraqui ; and higher up it is known sue*
cessively as the Niagara, Detroit, St. Clair, St.
Mary's, and St. Louis rivers. Humboldt,
speaking of the Orinoco, says that this name is
unknown in the interior of the country ; so like-
wise the tribes that dwell about the sources of
the St. Lawrence have never heard the name
which it bears in the lower part of its course.
It rises near another father of waters, — the
Mississippi, — issuing from a remarkable spring
. far up in the woods, called Lake Superior, fif-
teen hundred miles in circumference; and sev-
eral other springs there are thereabouts which
feed it. It makes such a noise in its tumbling
down at one place as is heard all round the
world. Bouchette, the Surveyor-General of
the Canadas, calls it ^'the most splendid river on
the globe; " says that it is two thousand statute
miles long (more recent geographers make it
four or five hundred miles longer) ; that at the
Riviere du Sud it is eleven miles wide ; at the
Traverse, thirteen; at the Paps of Matane,
twenty-five; at the Seven Islands, seventy-
three; and at its mouth, from Cape Kosier to
the Mingan Settlements in Labrador, near one
hundred and five ( ?) miles wide. According to
Captain 'Bayfield's recent chart it is about
ninety-six geographical miles wide at the latter
place, measuring at right angles with the stream.

QUEBEC AND THE ST. LAWRENCE 115

It has much the largest estuary, regarding both
length and breadth, of any river on the globe.
Humboldt says that the river Plate, which has
the broadest estuary of the South American
rivers, is ninety-two geographical miles wide at
its moiith; also he found the Orinoco to be
more than three miles wide at five hundred and
sixty miles from its mouth ; but he does not tell
us that ships of six hundred tons can sail up it
so far, as they can up the St. Lawrence to Mon-
treal, — an equal distance. If he had described
a fleet of such ships at anchor in a city's port
so far inland, we should have got a very differ-
ent idea of the Orinoco. Perhaps Charlevoix
describes the St. Lawrence truly as the most
navigable river in the world. Between Mon-
treal and Quebec it averages about two miles
wide. The tide is felt as far up as Three Riv-
ers, four hundred and thirty-two miles, which
is as far as from Boston to Washington. As
far up as Cap aux Oyes, sixty or seventy miles
below Quebec, Kalm found a great part of the
plants near the shore to be marine, as glass-
wort {Salicomid)^ seaside pease (^Pisum mari-
timum)^ sea - milkwort {Glaitx)^ beach -grass
(jPsamma arenarium\ seaside plantain (Plan-
tago maritima^^ the sea-rocket {Bunias cakile\
etc.

The geographer Guyot observes that the

116 A YANKEE IN CANADA

MaraSon is three thousand miles long, and
gathers its waters from a surface of a million
and a half square miles; that the Mississippi
is also three thousand miles long, but its basin
covers only from eight to nine hundred thousand
square miles ; that the St. Lawrence is eighteen
hundred miles long, and its basin covers more
than a million square miles (Darby says five
hundred thousand); and speaking of the lakes,
he adds, *' These vast fresh-water seas, together
with the St. Lawrence, cover a surface of nearly
one hundred thousand square miles, and it has
been calculated that they contain about one half
of all the fresh water on the surface of our
planet." But all these calculations are necessa-
rily very rude and inaccurate. Its tributaries,
the Ottawa, St, Maurice, and Saguenay, are
great rivers themselves. The latter is said to
be more than one thousand (?) feet deep at its
mouth, while its cliffs rise perpendicularly an
equal distance above its surface. Pilots say
there are no soundings till one hundred and fifty
miles up the St. Lawrence. The greatest
sounding in the river, given on Bayfield's chart
of the gulf and river, is two hundred and twenty-
eight fathoms. McTaggart, an engineer, ob-
serves that "the Ottawa is larger than all the
rivers in Great Britain, were they running in
one. " The traveler Grey writes : " A dozen Dan-

QUEBEC AND THE ST. LAWRENCE 117

ubes, Rhines, Taguses, and Thameses would be
nothing to twenty miles of fresh water in
breadth [as where he happened to be], from ten
to forty fathoms in depth." And . again :
^^ There is not perhaps in the whole extent of
this immense continent so fine an approach to
it as by the river St. Lawrence. In the South-"
em States you have, in general, a level country
for many miles inland ; here you are introduced
at once into a majestic scenery, where every-
thing is on a grand scale, — mountains, woods,
lakes, rivers, precipices, waterfalls."

We have not yet the data for a minute com-
parison of the St. Lawrence with the South
American rivers ; but it is obvious that, taking
it in connection with its lakes, its estuary, and
its falls, it easily bears off the palm from all
the rivers on the globe; for though, as Bou-
chette observes, it may not carry to the ocean a
greater volume of water than the Amazon and
Mississippi, its surface and cubic mass are far
greater than theirs. But, unfortunately, this
noble river is closed by ice from the beginning
of December to the middle of April. The arri-
val of the first vessel from England when the
ice breaks up is, therefore, a great event, as
when the salmon, shad, and alewives come up a
river in the spring to relieve the famishing in-
habitants on its banks. Who can say what

118 A YANKEE IN CANADA

would have been the history of this continent if,
as has been suggested, this river had emptied
into the sea where New York stands !

After visiting the Museum and taking one
more look at the wall, I made haste to the Lord
Sydenham steamer, which at five o'clock was to
leave for Montreal. I had already taken a seat
on deck, but finding that I had still an hour
and a half to spare, and remembering that large
map of Canada which I had seen in the parlor
of the restaurateur in my search after pudding,
and realizing that I might never see the like out
of the country, I returned thither, asked liberty
to look at the map, rolled up the mahogany
table, put my handkerchief on it, stood on it,
and copied all I wanted before the maid came
in and said to me standing on the table, ^'Some
gentlemen want the room, sir; " and I retreated
without having broken the neck of a single bot*
tie, or my own, very thankful and willing to
pay for all the solid food I had got. We were
soon abreast of Cap Rouge, eight miles above
Quebec, after we got underway. It was in this
place, then called '^Fort du France Roy^'*^ that
the Sieur de Roberval with his company, hav-
ing sent home two of his three ships, spent the
winter of lt542-43. It appears that they fared
in the following manner (I translate from the
original): ^'Each mess had only two loaves.

QUEBEC AND THE ST. LA WRENCE 119

weighing each a pound, and half a pound of
beef. They ate pork for dinner, with half a
pound of butter, and beef for supper, with
about two handfuls of beans without butter.
Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays they ate
salted cod, and sometimes green, for dinner,
with butter; and porpoise and beans for supper.
Monsieur Boberval administered good justice,
and punished each according to his offense.
One, named Michel Gaillon, was hung for
theft; John of Nantes was put in irons and im-
prisoned for his fault; and others were likewise
put in irons; and many were whipped, both
men and women ; by which means they lived in
peace and tranquillity." In an account of a
voyage up this river, printed in the Jesuit Rela-
tions in the year 1664, it is said: ^^It was an
interesting navigation for us in ascending the
river from Cap Tourmente to Quebec, to see on
this side and on that, for the space of eight
leagues, the farms and the houses of the com-
pany, built by our French, all along these
shores. On the right, the seigniories of Beau-
port, of Notre Dame des Anges; and on the
left, this beautiful Isle of Orleans." The same
traveler names among the fruits of the country
observed at the Isles of Eichelieu, at the head
of Lake St. Peter, ^' kinds (des especes) of little
apples or haws (semelles), and of pears, which
only ripen with the frost."

120 A YANKEE IN CANADA

Night came on before we had passed the high
banks. We had come from Montreal to Que-
bec in one night. The return voyage, against
the stream, takes but an hour longer. Jacques
Cartier, the first white man who is known to
have ascended this river, thus speaks of his
voyage from what is now Quebec to the foot of
Lake St. Peter, or about halfway to Montreal t
"From the said day, the 19th, even to the 28th
of the said month [September, 1535], we had
been navigating up the said river without losing
hour or day, during which time we had seen and
found as much country and lands as level as we
could desire, full of the most beautiful trees in
the world," which he goes on to describe. But
we merely slept and woke again to find that we
had passed through all that country which he
was eight days in sailing through. He must
have had a troubled sleep. We were not long
enough on the river to realize that it had length;
we got only the impression of its breadth, as if
we had passed over a lake a mile or two in
breadth and several miles long, though we
might thus have slept through a European king-
dom. Being at the head of Lake St. Peter, on
the above-mentioned 28th of September, dealing
with the natives, Cartier says: "We inquired
of them by signs if this was the route to Hoche-
laga [Montreal] ; and they answered that it was.

QUEBEC AND THE ST, LA WRENCE 121

and that there were yet three days' journeys to
go there." He finally arrived at Hochelaga on
the 2d of October.

When I went on deck at dawn we had al-
ready passed through Lake St. Peter, and saw
islands ahead of us. Our boat advancing with
a strong and steady pulse over the caJm surface,
we felt as if we were permitted to be awake in
the scenery of a dream. Many vivacious Lorn-
bardy poplars along the distant shores gave
them a novel and lively, though artificial, look,
and contrasted strangely with the slender and
graceful elms on both shores and islands. The
church of Varennes, fifteen miles from Mon-
treal, was conspicuous at a great distance before
us, appearing to belong to, and rise out of, the
river; and now, and before. Mount Royal indi-
cated where the city was. We arrived about
seven o'clock, and set forth immediately to as-
cend the mountain, two miles distant, going
across lots in spite of numerous signs threaten-
ing the severest penalties to trespassers, past an
old building known as the Mac Tavish property,
— Simon Mac Tavish, I suppose, whom Silli-
man refers to as ^4n a sense the foimder of the
Northwestern Company." His tomb was be-
hind in the woods, with a remarkably high wall
and higher monument. The family returned to
Europe. He could not have imagined how dead

122 A YANKEE IN CANADA

he would be in a few years, and all the more
dead and forgotten for being buried under such
a mass of gloomy stone, where not even memory
could get at him without a crowbar. Ah! poor
man, with that last end of his! However, he
may have been the worthiest of mortals for
aught that I know. From the mountain-top
we got a view of the whole city; the flat, fer-
tile, extensive island; the noble sea of the St.
Lawrence swelling into lakes; the mountains
about St. Hyacinthe, and in Vermont and New
York; and the mouth of the Ottawa in the west,
overlooking that St. Anne's where the voyageur
sings his ^^ parting hymn," and bids adieu to
civilization, — a name, thanks to Moore's
verses, the most suggestive of poetic associations
of any in Canada. We, too, climbed the hill
which Cartier, first of white men, ascended, and
named Mont -real (the 3d of October, O. S.,
1535), and, like him, '^we saw the said river as
far as we could see, grand^ large^ et spadeux^
going to the southwest," toward that land
whither Donnacona had told the discoverer that
he had been a month's journey from Canada,
where there grew ''^force Candle et Ovrofie^^
much cinnamon and cloves, and where also, as
the natives told him, were three great lakes and
afterward xme mer daiice^ — a sweet sea, — de
laquelle n*est mention avoir vu le bout^ of which

QUEBEC AND THE ST. LA WRENCE 123

there is no mention to have seen the end. But
instead of an Indian town far in the interior of
a new world, with guides to show us where the
river came from, we found a splendid and bus-
tling stone-built city of white men, and only a
few squalid Indians offered to sell us baskets at
the Lachine Railroad Depot, and Hochelaga is,
perchance, but the fancy name of an engine
company or an eatings-house.

We left Montreal Wednesday, the 2d of
October, late in the afternoon. In the La
Prairie cars the Yankees made themselves
merry, imitating the cries of the charette dri-
vers to perfection, greatly to the amusement of
some French Canadian travelers, and they kept
it up all the way to Boston. I saw one person
on board the boat at St. John's, and one or two
more elsewhere in Canada, wearing homespun
gray great-coats, or capotes, with conical and
comical hoods, which fell back between their
shoulders like small bags, ready to be turned up
over the head when occasion required, though a
hat usurped that place now. They looked as if
they would be convenient and proper enough as
long as the coats were new and tidy, but would
soon come to have a beggarly and unsightly
look, akin to rags and dust-holes. We reached
Burlington early in the morning, where the
Yankees tried to pass off their Canada coppers,

124 A YANKEE IN CANADA

but the news-boys knew better. Retoming
through the Green Mountains, I was reminded
that I had not seen in Canada such brilliant
autumnal tints as I had previously seen in Ver-
mont. Perhaps there was not yet so great and
sudden a contrast with the summer heats in the
former country as in these mountain valleys.
As we were passing through Ashbumham, by a
new white house which stood at some distance in
a field, one passenger exclaimed, so that all in
the car could hear him, '^ There, there 's not so
good a house as that in all Canada! " I did not
much wonder at his remark, for there is a neat-
ness, as well as evident prosperity, a certain
elastic easiness of circumstances, so to speak,
when not rich, about a New England house, as
if the proprietor could at least afford to make
repairs in the spring, which the Canadian
houses do not suggest. Though of stone, they
are no better constructed than a stone bam
would be with us ; the only building, except the
chateau, on which money and taste are ex-
pended, being the church. In Canada an ordi-
nary New England house would be mistaken for
the chateau, and while every village here con-
tains at least several gentlemen or "squires,"
there there is but one to a seigniory.

I got home this Thursday evening, having
spent just one week in Canada and traveled

QUEBEC AND THE ST. LAWRENCE 125

eleven hundred miles. The whole expense of
this journey, including two guide-books and a
map, which cost one dollar twelve and a half
cents, was twelve dollars seventy-five cents. I
do not suppose that I have seen all British
America; that could not be done by a cheap
excursion, unless it were a cheap excursion to
the Icy Sea, as seen by Heame or Mackenzie,
and then, no doubt, some interesting features
would be omitted. I wished to go a little way
behind the word Canadense^ of which natural-
ists make such frequent use ; and I should like
still right well to make a longer excursion on
foot through the wilder parts of Canada, which
perhaps might be called Iter Canadenae.

NATURAL HISTORY OP MASSACHUSETTS ^

Books of natural history make the most
cheerful winter reading. I read in Audubon
with a thrill of delight, when the snow covers
the ground, of the magnolia, and the Florida
keys, and their warm sea-breezes ; of the fence-
rail, and the cotton-tree, and the migrations of
the rice-bird; of the breaking up of winter in
Labrador, and the melting of the snow on the
forks of the Missouri ; and owe an accession of
health to these reminiscences of luxuriant na-
ture.

Within the circuit of this plodding life,
There enter moments of an azure hue,
Untarnished fair as is the violet
Or anemone, when the spring Btre^ira them
By some meandering riyulet, -which make
The best philosophy xmtme that aims
But to console man for his grievances.
I have remembered when the winter came,
High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
When in the stUl light of the cheerful moon,

1 Reports — on the Fishes^ Beptiles, and Birds; the Herba-
ceous Plants and Quadrupeds ; the Insects Injurious to Vegeta-
tion; and the Invertebrate Animals of Massachusetts. Pub-
lished agreeably to an Order of the Legislature, by the
Commissioners on the Zoological and Botanical Survey of the
State.

128 NATURAL HISTORY

On every twig and rail and jntting spont,

The ioy spears were adding to their length

Against the arrows of the coming son,

How in the shimmering noon of summer past

Some unrecorded heun slanted across

The upland pastures where the Jdhnswort grew ;

Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind,

The hee^s long smothered hum, on the blue flag

Loitering amidst the mead ; or busy rill.

Which now through all its course stands still and dumb,

Its own memorial, — purling at its play

Along the slopes, and through the meadows next,

Until its youthful sound was hushed at last

In the staid current of the lowland stream ;

Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned.

And where the fieldfare followed in the rear,

When all the fields around lay bound and hoar

Beneath a thick integument of snow.

So by God^s cheap economy made rich

To go upon my winter's task again. •

I am singularly refreshed in winter when I
hear of service-berries, poke-weed, juniper. Is
not heaven made up of these cheap summer glo-
ries? There is a singular health in those words,
Labrador and East Main, which no desponding
creed recognizes. How much more than Fed-
eral are these States. If there were no other
vicissitudes than the seasons, our interest would
never tire. Much more is adoing than Con-
gress wots of. What journal do the persim-
mon and the buckeye keep, and the sharp-
shinned hawk? What is transpiring from
summer to winter in the Carolinas, and the

OF MASSACHUSETTS 129

Great Pine Forest, and the Valley of the Mo-
hawk? The merely political aspect of the land
is never very cheering ; men are degraded when
considered as the members of a political organi-
zation. On this side all lands present only the
symptoms of decay. I see but Bunker Hill and
Sing-Sing, the District of Columbia and Sulli-
van's Island, with a few avenues connecting
them. But paltry are they all beside one blast
of the east or the south wind which blows over
them.

In society you will not find health, but in
nature. Unless our feet at least stood in the
midst of nature, all our faces would be pale and
livid. Society is always diseased, and the best
is the most so. There is no scent in it so whole-
some as that of the pines, nor any fragrance so
penetrating and restorative as the life-everlast-
ing in high pastures. I would keep some book
of natural history always by me as a sort of
elixir, the reading of which should restore the
tone of the system. To the sick, indeed, nature
is sick, but to the well, a foimtain of health.
To him who contemplates a trait of natural
beauty no harm nor disappointment can come.
The doctrines of despair, of spiritual or political
tyranny or servitude, were never taught by such
as shared the serenity of nature. Surely good
courage will not flag here on the Atlantic bor-

180 NATURAL HISTORY

der, as long as we are flanked by the Fur Coun-
tries. There is enough in that sound to cheer
one under any circumstances. The spruce, the
hemlock, and the pine will not countenance de-
spair. Methinks some creeds in vestries and
churches do forget the hunter wrapped in furs
by the Great Slave Lake, and that the Esqui-
maux sledees are drawn by do&:s, and in the
..UigU o/ti» norther nigk. .1 h™,to doe,
not give over to follow the seal and walrus on
the ice. They are* of sick and diseased imagi-
nations who would toU the world's knell so soon.
Cannot these sedentary sects do better than pre-
pare the shrouds and write the epitaphs of those
other busy living men? The practical faith of
all men belies the preacher's consolation. What
is any man's discourse to me, if I am not sensi-
ble of something in it as steady and cheery as
the creak of crickets? In it the woods must be
relieved against the sky. Men tire me when I
am not constantly greeted and refreshed as by
the flux of sparkling streams. Surely joy is
the condition of life. Think of thcyoimg fry
that leap in ponds, the myriads of insects ush-
ered into being on a summer evening, the inces-
sant note of the hyla with which the woods ring
in the spring, the nonchalance of the butterfly
carrying accident and change painted in a thou-
sand hues upon its wings, or the brook minnow

OF MASSACHUSETTS 131

stoutly stemming the current, the lustre of
whose sdkles, worn bright by the attrition, is re-
fleeted upon the bank.

We fancy that this din of religion, literature,
and philosophy, which is heard in pulpits, lyce-
ums, and parlors, vibrates through the universe,
and is as catholic a sound as the creaking of the
earth's axle; but if a man sleep soundly, he will
forget it all between simset and dawn. It is
the three-inch swing of a pendulum in a cup-
board, which the great pulse of nature vibrates
by and through each instant. When we lift
our eyelids and open our ears, it disappears
with smoke and rattle like the cars on a rail-
road. When I detect a beauty in any of the
recesses of nature, I am reminded, by the serene
and retired spirit in which it requires to be con-
templated, of the inexpressible privacy of a life,
— how silent and unambitious it is. The
beauty there is in mosses must be considered
from the holiest, quietest nook. What an ad-
mirable training is science for the more active
warfare of life. Indeed, the unchallenged brav-
ery, which these studies imply, is far more im-
pressive than the trumpeted valor of the war-
rior. I am pleased to learn that Thales was up
and stirring by night not unfrequently, as his
astronomical discoveries prove. Linnaeus, set-
ting out for Lapland, surveys his ^^comb" and

182 NATURAL HISTORY

"spare shirt," "leathern breeches" and "gauze
cap to keep off gnats," with as much compla-
cency as Bonaparte a park of artillery for the
Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the
man is admirable. His eye is to take in fish,
flower, and bird, quadruped and biped. Sci-
ence is always brave; for to know is to know
good; doubt and danger quail before her eye.
What the coward overlooks in his hurry, she
calmly scrutinizes, breaking ground like a
pioneer for the array of arts that follow in her
train. But cowardice is imscientific ; for there
cannot be a science of ignorance. There may
be a science of bravery, for that advances ; but
a retreat is rarely well conducted; if it is, then
is it an orderly advance in the face of circum-
stances.

But to draw a little nearer to our promised
topics. Entomology extends the limits of being
in a new direction, so that I walk in nature with
a sense of greater space and freedom. It sug-
gests besides, that the universe is not rough-
hewn, but perfect in its details. Nature will
bear the closest inspection ; she invites us to lay
our eye level with the smallest leaf, and take an
insect view of its plain. She has no interstices;
every part is full of life. I explore, too, with
pleasure, the sources of the myriad sounds
which crowd the summer noon, and which seem

OF MASSACHUSETTS 183

thd very grain and stuff of which eternity is
made. Who does not remember the shrill roll-
call of the harvest fly? There were ears for
these sounds in Greece long ago, as Anacreon's
ode will show.

*' We pronounce thee happy, Gioadiii
For on the tops of the trees,
Drinking a little dew,
Like any king thou singest,
For thine are they all,
Whatever thou seest in the fields,
And whatever the woods bear.
Thou art the friend of the husbandmen.
In no respect injuring any one ;
And thou art honored among men.
Sweet prophet of summer.
The Muses love thee,
And Phcebus himself loves thee.
And has given thee a shrill song ;
Age does not wrack thee,
Thou skillful, earthbom, song-lovii^,
Unsuffering, bloodless one ;
Almost thou art like the gods/^

In the autumn days, the creaking of crickets
is heard at noon over all the land, and as in
summer they are heard chiefly at nightfall, so
then by their incessant chirp they usher in the
evening of the year. Nor can all the vanities
that vex the world alter one whit the measure
that night has chosen. Every pulse-beat is in
exact time with the cricket's chant and the tick-
ings of the death-watch in the wall. Alternate
with these if you can.

184 NATURAL HISTORY

About two hundred and eighty birds either
reside permanently in the State, or spend the
summer only, or make us a passing visit.
Those which spend the winter with us have ob-
tained our warmest sympathy. The nut-hatch
and chickadee flitting in company through the
dells of the wood, the one harshly scolding at
the intruder, the other with a faint lisping note
enticing him on ; the jay screaming in the or-
chard ; the crow cawing in unison with the storm ;
the partridge, like a russet link extended over
from autumn to spring, preserving imbroken the
chain of summers; the hawk with warrior-like
firmness abiding the blasts of winter ; the robin ^
and lark lurking by warm springs in the woods;
the familiar snow-bird culling a few seeds in the
garden, or a few crumbs in the yard; and occa-
sionally the shrike, with heedless and unfrozen
melody bringing back summer again : —

His steady sails he never furls
At any time o' year,
And perching' now on Winter's cnrls,
He -whistles in his ear.

^ A white robin and a white qnaU have ocoasionally been
seen. It is mentioned in Audubon as remarkable that the nest
of a robin should be found on the g^nnd ; but this bird seems
to.be less particular than most in the choice of a building spot.
I have seen its nest placed under the thatched roof of a de-
serted bam, and in one instance, where the adjacent country
was nearly destitute of trees, together with two of the phoebe,
npon the end of a board in the loft of a saw-mill, but a few feet

OF MASSACHUSETTS 186

As the spring advances, and the ice is melting
in the river, our earliest and straggling visitors
make their appearance. Again does the old
Teian poet sing as well for New England as for
Greece, in the

RETTIRN OF SPRING

Behold, how Spring appearing,
The Graces send f ortii roses ;
Behold, how the ware of the sea
Is made smooth by the calm ;
Behold, how the dnck dives ;
Behold, how the crane travels ;
And Titan shines constantly bright.
The shadows of the clouds are moving ;
The works of man shine ;
The earth puts forth fruits ;
The fruit of the olive puts forth.
The cup of Bacchus is crowned,
Along the leaves, along the branches,
The fruit, bending them down, flourishes.

The ducks alight at this season in the still
water, in company with the gulls, which do not
fail to improve an east wind to visit our mead-
ows, and swim about by twos and threes, plum-
ing themselves, and diving to peck at the root of
the lily, and the cranberries which the frost has
not loosened. The first flock of geese is seen
beating to north, in long harrows and waving
lines; the jingle of the song-sparrow salutes us

from the saw, which vibrated several inches with the motion of
the machinery.

186 NATURAL HISTORY

from the shrubs and fences ; the plaintive note
of the lark comes clear and sweet from the
meadow; and the bluebird, like an azure ray,
glances past us in our walk. The fish-hawk,
too, is occasionally seen at this season sailing
majestically over the water, and he who has once
observed it wiD not soon forget the majesty of
its flight. It sails the air like a ship of the line,
worthy to struggle with the elements, falling
back from time to time like a ship on its beam
ends, and holding its talons up as if ready for
the arrows, in the attitude of the national bird.
It is a great presence, as of the master of river
and forest. Its eye would not quail before the
owner of the soil, but make him feel like an in-
truder on its domains. And then its retreat,
sailing so steadily away, is a kind of advance. I
have by me one of a pair of ospreys, which have
for some years fished in this vicinity, shot by a
neighboring pond, measuring more than two feet
in length, and six in the stretch of its wings.
Nuttall mentions that '^The ancients, particu«
larly Aristotle, pretended that the ospreys taught
their young to gaze at the sun, and those who
were unable to do so were destroyed. Linnaeus
even believed, on ancient authority, that one of
the feet of this bird had all the toes divided, while
the other was partly webbed, so that it could
swim with one foot, and grasp a fish with the

OF MASSACHUSETTS 137

other." But that educated eye is now dim, and
those talons are nerveless. Its shrill scream
seems yet to linger in its throat, and the roar of
the sea in its wings. There is the tyranny of Jove
in its claws, and his wrath in the erectile feathers
of the head and neck. It reminds me of the
Argonautic expedition, and would inspire the
dullest to take flight over Parnassus.

The booming of the bittern, described by
Goldsmith and Nuttall, is frequently heard in
our fens, in the morning and evening, sounding
like a pump, or the chopping of wood in a frosty

in which this sound is produced I have not seen
anywhere described. On one occasion, the bird
has been seen by one of my neighbors to thrust
its bill into the water, and suck up as much as it
could hold, then, raising its head, it pumped it
out again with four or five heaves of the neck,
throwing it two or three feet, and making the
sound each time.

At length the summer's eternity is ushered in
by the cackle of the flicker among the oaks on
the hillside, and a new dynasty begins with calm
security.

In May and June the woodland quire is in full
tune, and given the immense spaces of hollow air,
and this curious human ear, one does not see how
the void could be better filled.

188 NATURAL HISTORY

Each snmiiier sonnd
Is a snnmier round.

As the season advances, and those birds which
make us. but a passing visit depart, the woods
become silent again, and but few feathers ruffle
the drowsy air. But the solitary rambler may
still find a response and expression for every
mood in the depths of the wood.

Sometimes I liear the veery's ^ darion,

Or hrazen trump of the impatient jay,

And in sedaded woods the chickadee

Doles out her scanty notes, which sing the praise

Of heroes, and set forth the loyeliness

Of virtue evermore.

The phoebe still sings in harmony with the
sultry weather by the brink of the pond, nor are
the desultory hours of noon in the midst of the
village without their minstrel.

Upon the lofty elm-tree sprays

The vireo rings the changes sweet,

During the trivial suimner days,

Striving to lift our thoughts ahove the street.

With the autumn begins in some measure a
new spring. The plover is heard whistling high

^ This hird, which is so well described by Kuttall, but is
apparently unknown by the author of the Report, is one of the
most common in the woods in this vicinity, and in Cambridge I
have heard the college yard ring with its tiill. The boys caU
it ^^ yorrickf''* from the sound of its querulous and chiding note,
as it flits near the traveler through the underwood. The
cowbird's egg is occasionally found in its nest, as mentioned
by Audubon.

OF MASSACHUSETTS 139

in the air over the dry pastures, the finches flit
from tree to tree, the bobolinks and flickers fly in
flocks, and the goldfinch rides on the earliest
blast, like a winged hyla peeping amid the rustle
of the leaves. The crows, too, begin now to
congregate; you may stand and count them as
they fly low and straggling oyer the landscape,
singly or by twos and threes, at intervals of half
a mile, until a hundred have passed.

I have seen it suggested somewhere that the
crow was brought to this country by the white
man; but I shall as soon believe that the white
man planted these pines and hemlocks. He is
no spaniel to follow our steps ; but rather flits
about the clearings like the dusky spirit of the
Indian, reminding me oftener of Philip and
Powhatan, than of Winthrop and Smith. He
is a relic of the dark ages. By just so slight,
by just so lasting a tenure does superstition hold
the world ever ; there is the rook in England,
and the crow in New England.

Thou dusky spirit of the wood,

Bird of an ancient brood,

Flitting thy lonely way,

A meteor in the snininer's day,

From wood to wood, from hill to hill.

Low over forest, field, and rill.

What wonldst thou say ?

Why shonldst thou haunt the day ?

What makes thy melancholy float ?

What bravery inspires thy throat,

140 NATURAL HISTORY

And bean thee up above the elonds,
Over desponding human crowds,
Which far below
Lay thy haunts low ?

The late walker or sailor, in the October
evenings, may hear the murmurings of the snipe,
circling over the meadows, the most spirit-like
sound in nature ; and still later in the autumn,
when the frosts have^ tinged the leaves, a solitary
loon pays a visit to our retired ponds, where he
may lurk undisturbed till the season of moult-
ing is passed, making the woods ring with his
wild laughter. This bird, the Great Northern
Diver, well deserves its name; for when pur-
sued with a boat, it will dive, and swinr like
a fish under water, for sixty rods or more, as
fast as a boat can be paddled, and its pursuer,
if he would discover his game again, must put
his ear to the surface to hear where it comes
up. When it comes to the surface, it throws
the water off with one shake of its wings, and
calmly swims about until again disturbed.

These are the sights and sounds which reach
our senses oftenest during the year. But some-
times one hears a quite new note, which has for
background other Carolinas and Mexicos than
the books describe, and learns that his ornitho-
logy has done him no service.

It appears from the Beport that there are

OF MASSACHUSETTS 141

about forty quadrupeds belonging to the State,
and among these one is glad to hear of a few
bears, wolves, lynxes, and wildcats.

When our river overflows its banks in the
spring, the wind from the meadows is laden
with a strong scent of musk, and by its fresh-
ness advertises me of an unexplored wildness.
Those backwoods are not far off then. I am
affected by the sight of the cabins of the musk-
rat, made of mud and grass, and raised three or
four feet along the river, as when I read of the
barrows of Asia. The musk-rat is the beaver
of the settled States. Their number has even
increased within a few years in this vicinity.
Among the rivers which empty into the Merri-
mack, the Concord is known to the boatmen as
a dead stream. The Indians are said to have
called it Musketaquid, or Prairie River. Its
current being much more sluggish and its
water more muddy than the rest, it abounds
more in fish and game of every kind. Accord-
ing to the History of the town, "The fur-trade
was here once very important. As early as
1641, a company was formed in the colony, of
which Major Willard of Concord was superin-
tendent, and had the exclusive right to trade
with the Indians in furs and other articles ; and
for this right they were obliged to pay into the
public treasury one twentieth of all the furs

142 NATURAL HISTORY

they obtained." There axe trappers in our
midst still, as well as on the streams of the far
West, who night and morning go the round of
their traps, without fear of the Indian. One
of these takes from one hundred and fifty to two
hundred musk-rats in a year, and even thirty-
six have been shot by one man in a day. Their
fur, which is not nearly as valuable as formerly,
is in good condition in the winter and spring
only ; and upon the breaking up of the ice, when
they are driven out of their holes by the water,
the greatest number is shot from boats, either
swimming or resting on their stools, or slight
supports of grass and reeds, by the side of the
stream. Though they exhibit considerable cun-
ning at other times, they are easily taken in a
trap, which has only to be placed in their holes,
or wherever they frequent, without any bait
being used, though it is sometimes rubbed with
their musk. In the winter the hunter cuts holes
in the ice, and shoots them when they come to
the surface. Their burrows are usually in the
high banks of the river, with the entrance under
water, and rising within to above the level of
high water. Sometimes their nests, composed of
dried meadow-grass and flags, maybe discovered
where the bank is low and spongy, by the yield-
ing of the groimd under the feet. They have
from three to seven or eight young in the spring.

OF MASSACHUSETTS 143

Frequently, in the morning or evening, a
long ripple is seen in the still water, where a
musk-rat is crossing the stream, with only its
nose above the surface, and sometimes a green
bough in its mouth to build its house with.
When it finds itself observed, it will dive and
swim five or six rods under water, and at length
conceal itself in its hole, or the weeds. It will
remain under water for ten minutes at a time,
and on one occasion has been seen, when undis-
turbed, to form an air-bubble under the ice,
which contracted and expanded as it breathed
at leisure. When it suspects danger on shore,
it will stand erect like a squirrel, and survey
its neighborhood for several minutes, without
moving.

In the fall, if a meadow intervene between
their burrows and the stream, they erect cabins
of mud and grass, three or four feet high, near
its edge. These are not their breeding-places,
though young are sometimes found in them vq,
late freshets, but rather their hunting-lodges,
to which they resort in the winter with their
food, and for shelter. Their food consists
chiefly of flags and fresh-water mussels, the
shells of the latter being left in large quantities
around their lodges in the spring.

The Penobscot Indian wears the entire skin
of a musk-rat, with the legs and tail dangling.

144 NATURAL HISTORY

and the head caught under his girdle, for a
pouch, into which he puts his fishing tackle, and
essences to scent his traps with.

The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver,
and marten have disappeared; the otter is
rarely if ever seen here at present; and the
mink is less common than formerly.

Perhaps of all our untamed quadrupeds, the
fox has obtained the widest and most familiar
reputation, from the time of Pilpay and .Ssop
to the present day. His recent tracks still give
variety to a winter's walk. I tread in the steps
of the fox that has gone before me by some
hours, or which perhaps I have started, with
such a tiptoe of expectation as if I were on the
trail of the Spirit itself which resides in the
wood, and expected soon to catch it in its lair.
I am curious to know what has determined its
graceful curvatures, and how surely they were
coincident with the fluctuations of some mind.
I know which way a mind wended, what horizon
it faced, by the setting of these tracks, and
whether it moved slowly or rapidly, by their
greater or less intervals and distinctness; for
the swiftest step leaves yet a lasting trace.
Sometimes you will see the trails of many to-
gether, and where they have gamboled and gone
through a hundred evolutions, which testify to
a singular listlessness and leisure in nature.

OF MASSACHUSETTS 145

When I see a fox run across the pond on the
snow, with the carelessness of freedom, or at
intervals trace his course in the sunshine along
the ridge of a hill, I give up to him sun and
earth as to their true proprietor. He does
not go in the sun, but it seems to follow him,
and there is a visible sympathy between him
and it. Sometimes, when the snow lies light,
and but five or six inches deep, you may give
chase and come up with one on foot. In such a
case he will show a remarkable presence of
*mind, choosing only the safest direction, though
he may lose ground by it. Notwithstanding his
fright, he will take no step which is not beauti-
ful. His pace is a sort of leopard canter, as if
he were in no wise impeded by the snow, but
were husbanding his strength all the while.
When the ground is uneven, the course is a se-
ries of graceful curves, conforming to the shape
of the surface. He runs as though there were
not a bone in his back. Occasionally dropping
his muzzle to the ground for a rod or two, and
then tossing his head aloft, when satisfied of his
course. When he comes to a declivity, he will
put his forefeet together, and slide swiftly down
it, shoving the snow before him. He treads so
softly that you would hardly hear it from any
nearness, and yet with such expression that it
would not be quite inaudible at any distance.

146 NATURAL HISTORY

Of fishes, seventy-five genera and one hun-
dred and seven species are described in the Re-
port. The fisherman will be startled to learn
that there are but about a dozen kinds in the
ponds and streams of any inland town; and
almost nothing is known of their habits. Only
their names and residence make one love fishes.
I would know even the number of their fin-rays,
and how many scales compose the lateral line.
I am the wiser in respect to all knowledges,
and the better qualified for all fortunes,^ for
knowing that there is a minnow in the brook.
Methinks I have need even of his sympathy,
and to be his fellow in a degree.

I have experienced such simple delight in the
trivial matters of fishing and sporting, formerly,
as might have inspired the muse of Homer or
Shakespeare ; and now, when I turn the pages
and ponder the plates of the Angler's Souvenir,
I am fain to exclaim, —

^' Can these things be,
And overcome us like a sununer's cloud ? "

Next to nature, it seems as if man's actions
were the most natural, they so gently accord
with her. The small seines of flax stretched
across the shallow and transparent parts of our
river are no more intrusion than the cobweb in
the sun. I stay my boat in mid-current, and
look down in the sunny water to see the civil

OF MASSACHUSETTS 147

meshes of his nets, and wonder how the bluster-
ing people of the town could have done this
. elvish work. The twine looks like a new river
weed, and is to the river as a beautiful memento
of man's presence in nature, discovered as si-
lently and delicately as a footprint in the sand.

When the ice is covered with snow, I do not
suspect the wealth under my feet; that there
is as good as a mine under me wherever I go.
How many pickerel are poised on easy fin fath-
oms below the loaded wain. The revolution of
the seasons must be a curious phenomenon to
I them. At length the sun and wind brush aside

their curtain, and they see the heavens again.

Early in the spring, after the ice has melted,
is the time for spearing fish. Suddenly the
wind ^shifts from northeast and east to west and
south, and every icicle, which has tinkled on
the meadow grass so long, trickles down its
stem, and seeks its level unerringly with a million
comrades. The steam curls up from every roof
and fence.

I see the civil sun drying eaiih's tears,
Her tears of joy, which only faster flow.

In the brooks is heard the slight grating
sound of small cakes of ice, floating with vari-
ous speed, full of content and promise, and
where the water gurgles under a natural bridge,
you may hear these hasty rafts hold conversa-

148 NATURAL HISTORY

tion In an undertone. Every rill is a channel
for the juices of the meadow. In the ponds the
ice cracks with a merry and inspiriting din, and
down the larger streams is whirled grating
hoarsely, and crashing its way along, which
was so lately a highway for the woodman^s team
and the fox, sometimes with the tracks of the
skaters still fresh upon it, and the holes cut for
pickerel. Town committees anxiously inspect
the bridges and causeways, as if by mere eye-
force to intercede with the ice and save the
treasury.

The river swelleth more and more,
Like some sweet inflaence stealing o^er
The passive town ; and for a while
Each tuBsock mf^es a tiny isle,
Where, on some friendly Ararat,
Resteth the weary water-rat.

No ripple shows Musketaquid,

Her very current e'en is hid,

As deepest souls do calmest rest,

When thoughts are sweUing in the breast,

And she that in the summer's drought

Doth make a rippling and a rout,

Sleeps from Nahshawtuck to the Cliff,

UnrufiBed by a single skiff.

But by a thousand distant hills

The louder roar a thousand rills,

And many a spring which now is dumb,

And many a stream with smothered hum.

Doth swifter well and faster glide,

Though buried deep beneath the tide.

OF MASSACHUSETTS 149

Our Tillage shows a rural Venioe,
Its broad lagoons where yonder fen is ;
As lovely as the Bay of Naples
Ton placid coye amid the maples ;
And in my neighbor's field of com
I recognize the Gk>lden Horn.

Here Nature taught from year to year,
When only red men came to hear, —
Methinhs 'twas in this school of art
Venice and Naples learned their part ;
But still their mistress, to my mind,
Her young disciples leaves behind.

The fisherman now repairs and launches his
boat. The best time for spearing is at this
season, before the weeds have begun to grow,
and while the fishes lie in the shallow water, for
in summer they prefer the cool depths, and in
the autupin they are still more or less concealed
by the grass. The first requisite is fuel for
your crate; and for this purpose the roots of
the pitch-pine are commonly used, found under
decayed stumps, where the trees have been
felled eight or ten years.

With a crate, or jack, made of iron hoops,
to contain your fire, and attached to the bow of
your boat about three feet from the water, a
fish-spear with seven tines and fourteen feet
long, a large basket or barrow to carry your
fuel and bring back your fish, and a thick outer
garment, you are equipped for a cruise. It

160 NATURAL HISTORY

should be a warm and still evening; and then,
with a fire crackling merrily at the prow, you
may launch forth like a cucullo into the night.
The dullest soul cannot go upon such an expe-
dition without some of the spirit of adventure;
as if he had stolen the boat of Charon and gone
down the Styx on a midnight expedition into
the realms of Pluto. And much speculation
does this wandering star afford to the musing
night-walker, leading him on and on, jack-o'-
lantem-like, over the meadows ; or, if he is wiser,
he amuses himself with imagining what of hu-
man life, far in the silent night, is flitting moth-
like round its candle. The silent navigator
shoves his craft gently over the water, with a
smothered pride and sense of benefaction, as if
he were the phosphor, or light-bringer, to these
dusky reahns, or some sister moon, blessmg the
spaces with her light. The waters, for a rod or
two on either hand and several feet in depth,
are lit up with more than noonday distinctness,
and he enjoys the opportunity which so many
have desired, for the roofs of a city are indeed
raised, and he surveys the midnight economy of
the fishes. There they lie in every variety of
posture ; some on their backs, with their white
bellies uppermost, some suspended in mid-water,
some sculling gently along with a dreamy mo-
tion of the fins, and others quite active and wide

OF MASSACHUSETTS 151

awake, — a scene not unlike what the human
city would present. Occasionally he will en-
counter a turtle selecting the choicest morsels,
or a musk-rat resting on a tussock. He may
exercise his dexterity, if he sees fit, on the more
distant and active fish, or fork the nearer into
his boat, as potatoes out of a pot, or even take
the sound sleepers with his hands. But these
last accomplishments he will soon learn to dis-
pense with, distinguishing the real object of his
pursuit, and find compensation in the beauty
and never-ending novelty of his position. The
pines growing down to the water's edge will
show newly as in the glare of a conflagration ;
and as he floats under the willows with his light,
the song-sparrow will often wake on her perch,
and sing that strain at midnight, which she had
meditated for the morning. And when he has
done, he may have to steer his way home
through the dark by the north star, and he will
feel himself some degrees nearer to it for hav-
ing lost his way on the earth.

The fishes conunonly taken in this way are
pickerel, suckers, perch, eels, pouts, breams,
and shiners, — from thirty to sixty weight in a
night. Some are hard to be recognized in the
unnatural light, especially the perch, which, his
dark bands being exaggerated, acquires a fero-
cious aspect. The number of these transverse

162 NATURAL HISTORY

bands, which the Report states to be seven, is,
however, very variable, for in some of our ponds
they have nine and ten even.

It appears that we have eight kinds of tor-\
toises, twelve snakes, — but one of which is
venomous, — nine frogs and toads, nine sala-
manders, and one lizard, for our neighbors.

I am particularly attracted by the motions of
the serpent tribe. They make our hands and
feet, the wings of the bird, and the fins of the
fish seem very superfluous, as if nature had
only indulged her fancy in making them. The
black snake will dart into a bush when pursued,
and circle round and round with an easy and
graceful motion, amid the thin and bare twigs,
five or six feet from the ground, as a bird flits
from bough to bough, or hang in festoons be-
tween the forks. Elasticity and flexibleness in
the simpler forms of animal life are equivalent
to a complex system of limbs in the higher ; and
we have only to be as wise and wily as the ser-
pent, to perform as difficult feats without the
vulgar assistance of hands and feet.

In May, the snapping turtle, Emysaurus «er-
pentina^ is frequently taken on the meadows and
in the river. The fisherman, taking sight over
the calm surface, discovers its snout projecting
above the water, at the distance of many rods,
»d e«a, see™, hi. pre, d>r..gl. it. Lwill-

OF MASSACHUSETTS 153

ingness to disturb the water by swimming has-
tily away, for, gradually drawing its head un-
der, it remains resting on some limb or clump
of grass. Its eggs, which are buried at a dis-
tance from the water, in some soft place, as
a pigeon-bed, are frequently devoured by the
skunk. It will catch fish by daylight, as a
toad catches flies, and is said to emit a transpar-
ent fluid from its mouth to attract them.

Nature has taken more care than the fondest
parent for the education and refinement of her
children. Consider the silent influence which
flowers exert, no less upon the ditcher in the
meadow than the lady in the bower. When I
walk in the woods, I am reminded that a wise
purveyor has been there before me; my most
delicate experience is typified there. I am
struck with the pleasing friendships and unani-
mities of nature, as when the lichen on the trees
takes the form of their leaves. In the most
stupendous scenes you will see delicate and
fragile features, as slight wreaths of vapor, dew-
lines, feathery sprays, which suggest a high
refinement, a noble blood and breeding, as it
were. It is not hard to account for elves and
fairies; they represent this light grace, this
ethereal gentility. Bring a spray from the
wood, or a crystal from the brook, and place it
on your mantel, and your household ornaments

154 NATURAL HISTORY

wiU seem plebeian beside its nobler fashion and
bearing. It will wave superior there, as if
used to a more refined and polished circle. It
has a salute and a response to all your enthu-
siasm and heroism.

In the winter, I stop short in the path to ad-
mire how the trees grow up without forethought,
regardless of the time and circumstances. They
do not wait as man does, but now is the golden
age of the sapling. Earth, air, sun, and rain
are occasion enough; they were no better in
primeval centuries. The "winter of their dis-
content" never comes. Witness the buds of
the native poplar standing gayly out to the frost
on the sides of its bare switches. They express
a naked confidence. With cheerful heart one
could be a sojourner in the wilderness, if he
were sure to find there the catkins of the willow
or the alder. When I read of them in the ac-
counts of northern adventurers, by Baffin's Bay
Or Mackenzie's River, I see how even there, too,
I could dwell. They are our little vegetable
redeemers. Methinks our virtue will hold out
till they come again. They are worthy to have
had a greater than Minerva or Ceres for their
inventor. Who was the benignant goddess that
bestowed them on mankind?

Nature is mythical and mystical always, and
works with the license and extravagance of gen-

OF MASSACHUSETTS 166

ius. She has her luxurious and florid style as
well as art. Having a pilgrim's cup to make,
she gives to the whole, stem, bowl, handle, and
nose, some fantastic shape, as if it were to be
the car of some fabulous marine deity, a Nereus
or Triton.

In the winter, the botanist need not confine
himself to his books and herbarium, and give
over his out-door pursuits, but may study a new
department of vegetable physiology, what may
be called crystalline botany, then. The winter
of 1837 was unusually favorable for this. In
December of that year, the Genius of vegeta-
tion seemed to hover by night over its summer
haunts with unusual persistency. Such a hoar-
frost as is very uncommon here or anywhere,
and whose full effects can never be witnessed
after sunrise, occurred several times. As I
went forth early on a stiU and frosty morning,
the trees looked like airy creatures of darkness
caught napping; on this side huddled together,
with their gray hairs streaming,, in a secluded
valley which the sun had not penetrated; on
that, hurrying off in Indian file along some
water-course, while the shrubs and grasses, like
elves and fairies of the night, sought to hide
their diminished heads in the snow. The river,
viewed from the high bank, appeared of a yel-
lowish green color, though all the landscape was

166 NATURAL HISTORY

white. Every tree, shrub, and spire of grass,
that could raise its head above the snow, was
covered with a dense ice-foliage, answering, as
it were, leaf for leaf to its summer dress. Even
the fences had put forth leaves in the night.
The centre, diverging, and more minute fibres
were perfectly distinct, and the edges regularly
indented. These leaves were on the side of the
twig or stubble opposite to the sim, meeting it
for the most part at right angles, and there were
others standing out at all possible angles upon
these and upon one another, with no twig or
stubble supporting them. When the first rays
of the sun slanted over the scene, the grasses
seemed hung with innumerable jewels, which
jingled merrily as they were brushed by the foot
of the traveler, and reflected all the hues of the
rainbow, as he moved from side to side. It
struck me that these ghost leaves, and the green
ones whose forms they assume, were the crea-
tures of but one law ; that in obedience to the
same law the vegetable juices swell gradually
into the perfect leaf, on the one hand, and the
crystalline particles troop to their standard in
the same order, on the other. As if the mate-
rial were indifferent, but the law one and inva-
riable, and every plant in the spring but pushed
up into and filled a permanent and eternal
mould, which, summer and winter forever, is
waiting to be filled.

OF MASSACHUSETTS 157

I This foliate structure is common to the coral

and the plumage of birds, and to how large a
part of animate and inanimate nature. The
same independence of law on matter is observa-
. ble in many other instances, as in the natural

j rhymes, when some animal form, color, or odor

has its counterpart in some vegetable. As, in-
deed, all rhymes imply an eternal melody, in-
dependent of any particular sense.
i As confirmation of the fact, that vegetation

\ is but a kind of crystallization, every one may

I observe how, upon the edge of the melting frost

on the window, the needle-shaped particles are
bundled together so as to resemble fields wav-
ing with grain, or shocks rising here and there
from the stubble ; on one side the vegetation of
the torrid zone, high-towering palms and wide-
spread banyans, such as are seen in pictures of
oriental scenery ; on the other, arctic pines stiff
frozen, with downcast branches.

Vegetation has been made the type of all
growth ; but as in crystals the law is more obvi-
ous, their material being more simple, and for
the most part more transient and fleeting, would
it not be as philosophical as convenient to con-
sider aU growth, aU filling up within the limits
of nature, but a crystallization more or less
rapid?

On this occasion, in the side of the high bank

158 NATURAL HISTORY

of the river, wherever the water or other cause
had formed a cavity, its throat and outer edge,
like the entrance to a citadel, bristled with a
glistening ice-armor. In one place you might
see minute ostrich-feathers, which seemed the
waving plumes of the warriors filing into the
fortress; in another, the glancing, fan-shaped
banners of the Lilliputian host ; and in another,
the needle-shaped particles collected into bim-
dles, resembling the plumes of the pine, might
pass for a phalanx of spears. From the under
side of the ice in the brooks, where there was
a thicker ice below, depended a mass of crystal-
lization, four or five inches deep, in the form of
prisms, with their lower ends open, which, when
the ice was laid on its smooth side, resembled the
roofs and steeples of a Gothic city, or the vessels
of a crowded haven under a press of canvas. The
very mud in the road, where the ice had melted,
was crystallized with deep rectilinear fissures,
and the crystalline masses in the sides of the ruts
resembled exactly asbestos in the disposition of
their needles. Around the roots of the stubble
and flower-stalks, the frost was gathered into the
form of irregular conical shells, or fairy rings.
In some places the ice crystals were lying upon
granite rocks, directly over crystals of quartz,
the frost-work of a longer night, crystals of a
longer period ; but, to some eye unprejudiced by

OF MASSACHUSETTS 159

the short term of human life, melting as fast as
the former.

In the Keport on the Invertebrate Animals,
this singular fact is recorded, which teaches us
to put a new value on time and space: ^^The
distribution of the marine shells is well worthy
of notice as a geological fact. Cape Cod, the
right arm of the Conmionwealth, reaches out into
the ocean, some fifty or sixty miles. It is no-
where many miles wide ; but this narrow point
of land has hitherto proved a barrier to the mi-
gi'ations of many species of MoUusca. Several
genera and numerous species, which are sepa-
rated by the intervention of only a few miles of
land, are effectually prevented from mingling
by the Cape, and do not pass from one side to
the other. ... Of the one hundred and ninety-
seven marine species, eighty-three do not pass
to the south shore, and fifty are not found on the
north shore of the Cape."

That common mussel, the Uhio complanatus^
or more properly ^wma^tYis, left in the spring by
the musk-rat upon rocks and stumps, appears
to have been an important article of food with
the Indians. In one place, where they are said
to have feasted, they are found in large quanti-
ties, at an elevation of thirty feet above the
river, filling the soil to the depth of a foot, and
mingled with ashes and Indian remains.

160 NATURAL HISTORY

The works we have placed at the head of our
chapter, with as much license as the preacher
selects his text, are such as imply more labor than
enthusiasm. The State wanted complete cata-
logues of its natural riches, with such additional
facts merely as would be directly useful.

The reports on Fishes, Reptiles, Insects, and
Invertebrate Animals, however, indicate labor
and research, and have a value independent of
the object of the legislature.

Those on Herbaceous Plants and Birds caniot
be of much value, as long as Bigelow and Nut-
tall are accessible. They serve but to indicate,
with more or less exactness, what species are
foimd in the State. We detect several t nors
ourselves, and a more practiced eye would no
doubt expand the list.

The Quadrupeds deserved a more final and in-
structive report than they have obtained.

These volumes deal much in measureiacuts
and minute descriptions, not interesting to the
general reader, with only here and there a col-
ored sentence to allure him, like those plants
growing in dark forests, which beat only leaves
without blossoms. But the ground was compar-
atively unbroken, and we will not complain of
the pioneer, if he raises no flowers with 1ms first
crop. Let us not underrate the value of a fact ;
it will one day flower in a truth. It is astoii-

^ OF MASSACHUSETTS 161

ishing how few facts of importance are added in
a century to the natural history of any animal.
The natural history of man himself is still being
gradually written. Men are knowing enough

> after their fashion. Every countryman and

dairy-maid knows that the coats of the fourth
stomach of the calf will curdle milk, and what
particular mushroom is a safe and nutritious
diet. You cannot go into any field or wood, but
it will seem as if every stone had been turned,

^ and the bark on every tree ripped up. But,

' after all, it is much easier to discover than to

, see when the cover is off. It has been well said

that "the attitude of inspection is prone." Wis-

I dom does not inspect, but behold. We must look \

a long time before we can see. Slow are the
beginnings of philosophy. He has something

i demoniacal in him, who can discern a law or

couple two facts. We can imagine a time
when "Water runs down hill" may have been
taught in the schools. The true man of science
will know nature better by his finer organiza-
tion; he will smell, taste, see, hear, feel, better

^ than other men. His will be a deeper and finer

experience. We do not leam by inference and
deduction ^nd the application of mathematics to
philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sym-
pathy. It is with science as with ethics, — we
cannot know truth by contrivance and method;

M I

162 NATURAL HISTORY

the Baconian is as false as any other, and with
all the helps of machinery and the arts, the
most scientific will still be the healthiest and
friendliest maji, and possess a more perfect In-
dian wisdom.

{

A WALK TO WACHUSETT

The needles of the pine
All to the west incline.

CoNOOBD, July 19, 1842.

Summer and winter our eyes had rested on
the dim outline of the mountains in our hori-
zon, to which distance and indistinctness lent a
grandeur not their own, so that they served
equally to interpret all the allusions of poets
and travelers; whether with Homer, on a spring
morning, we sat down on the many-peaked
Olympus, or with Virgil and his compeers
roamed the Etrurian and Thessalian hills, or
with Humboldt measured the more modern
Andes and Teneriffe. Thus we spoke our mind
to them, standing on the Concord cliffs : —

With frontier strong^ ye stand your ground,

With grand content ye circle ronnd,

Tumultuons silence for all sonnd,

Ye distant nursery of rills,

Monadnock, and the Peterboro' lulls ;

Like some yast fleet,

Sailing through rain and sleet,

Through winter's cold and summer's heat ;

StiU holding on, upon your high emprise,

Until ye find a shore amid the skies ;

164 A WALK TO WACHUSETT

Not sknUdng dose to land,
With carg^ contraband,
For they who sent a yentore ont by ye
Have set the snn to see
Their honesty.
Ships of the line, each one,
j; Ye to the westward ran.

Always before the gale.
Under a press of sail,
With weight of metal all nntold.
I seem to feel ye, in my firm seat here.
Immeasurable depth of hold.
And breadth of beam, and lengih of ronning gear.

Methinks ye take laznrions pleasure

In your novel western leisure ,*

So cool your brows, and freshly blue.

As Time had nought for ye to do ;

For ye lie at your lei^h.

An imappropriated strength.

Unhewn primeval timber.

For knees so stiff, for masts so limber ;

The stock of which new earths are made,

One day to be our western trade,

Fit for the stanchions of a world

Which through the seas of space is hurled.

While we enjoy a lingering ray.

Ye still overtop the western day.

Reposing yonder, on Gk>d's croft.

Like solid stacks of hay.

Edged with silver, and with gold.

The clouds hang o'er in damask fold.

And with such depth of amber light

The west is dight.

Where still a few rays slant,

That even heaven seems extravagant.

A WALK TO WACHUSETT 166

On the earth's edge moimtaiDS- and trees

Stand as they were on air graven,

Or as the vessels in a haven

Await the morning hreeze.

I fancy even

Through yonr defiles windeth the way to heaven ;

And yonder still, in spite of history's page,

Linger the golden and the silver age ;

Upon the lahoring gale

The news of future centuries is hrought,

And of new dynasties of thought,

From your remotest vale.

But special I rememher thee,

Wachusett, who like me

Standest alone without society.

Thy far blue eye,

A renmant of the sky.

Seen tiirough the clearing or the gorge

Or from the mndows on the forge,

Doth leaven all it passes by.

Nothing is true,

But stands 'tween me and you,

Thou western pioneer,

Who know'st not shame nor fear,

By venturous spirit driven,

Under the eaves of heaven,

And can'st expand thee there.

And breathe enough of air ?

Upholding heaven, holding down earth,

Thy pastime from thy birth.

Not steadied by the one, nor leaning on the other ;

May I approve myself thy worthy brother I

At length, like Rasselas, and other inhabi-
tants of happy valleys, we resolved to scale the
blue wall which bound the western horizon,

166 A WALK TO WACHUSETT

though not without misgivings that thereafter
no visible fairyland would exist for us. But
we will not leap at once to our journey's end,
though near, but imitate Homer, who conducts
his reader over the plain, and along the re-
sounding sea, though it be but to the tent of
Achilles. In the spaces of thought are the
reaches of land and water, where men go and
come. The landscape lies far and fair within,
and the deepest thinker is the farthest traveled.
At a cool and early hour on a pleasant morn-
ing in July, my companion and I passed rapidly
through Acton and Stow, stopping to rest and
refresh us on the bank of a small stream, a tri-
butary of the Assabet, in the latter town. As
we traversed the cool woods of Acton, with
stout staves in our hands, we were cheered by
the song of the red-eye, the thrushes, the
phcebe, and the cuckoo; and as we passed
through the open country, we inhaled the fresh
scent of every field, and all nature lay passive,
to be viewed and traveled. Every rail, every
farm-house, seen dimly in the twilight, every
tinkling sound told of peace and purity, and we
moved happily along the dank roads, enjoying
not such privacy as the day leaves when it with-
draws, but such as it has not profaned. It was
solitude with light ; which is better than dark-
ness. But anon, the sound of the mower's rifle

A WALK TO WACHUSETT 167

was heard in the fields, and this, too, mingled
with the lowing of kine.

This part of our route lay through the coun-
try of hops, which plant perhaps supplies the
want of the vine in American scenery, and may
remind the traveler of Italy and the South of
France, whether he traverses the country when
the hop-fields, as then, present solid and reg^ular
masses of verdure, hanging in graceful festoons
from pole to pole, the cool coverts where lurk
the gales which refresh the wayfarer; or in Sep-
tember, when the women and children, and the
neighbors from far and near, are gathered to
pick the hops into long troughs; or later still,
when the poles stand piled in vast pyramids in
the yards, or lie in heaps by the roadside.

The culture of the hop, with the processes of
picking, drying in the kiln, and packing for the
market, as well as the uses to which it is ap-
plied, so analogous to the culture and uses of
the grape, may afford a theme for future poets.

The mower in the adjacent meadow could not
tell us the name of the brook on whose banks
we had rested, or whether it had any, but his
younger companion, perhaps his brother, knew
that it was Great Brook. Though they stood
very near together in the field, the things they
knew were very far apart; nor did they sus-
pect each other's reserved knowledge, till the

168 A WALK TO WACHUSETT

stranger came by. In Bolton, while we rested
on the rails of a cottage fence, the strains of
music which issued from within, probably in
compliment to us, sojourners, reminded us that
thus far men were fed by the accustomed plea-
sures. So soon did we, wayfarers, begin to
learn that man's life is rounded with the same
few facts, the same simple relations everywhere,
and it is vain to travel to find it new. The
flowers grow more various ways than he. But
coming soon to higher land, which afforded a
prospect of the mountains, we thought we had
not traveled in vain, if it were only to hear a
truer and wilder pronunciation of their names
from the lips of the inhabitants ; not FFa^-tatic,
TFoy-chusett, but TTor-tatic, TFor-chusett. It
made us ashamed of our tame and civil pronun-
ciation, and we looked upon them as bom and
bred farther west than we. Their tongues had
a more generous accent than ours, as if breath
was cheaper where they wagged. A country-
man, who speaks but seldom, talks copiously,
as it were, as his wife sets cream and cheese
before you without stint. Before noon we had
reached the highlands overlooking the valley of
Lancaster (affording the first fair and open
prospect into the west), and there, on the top of
a hill, in the shade of some oaks, near to where
a spring bubbled out from a leaden pipe, we

A WALK TO WACHUSETT 169

rested during the heat of the day, reading
Virgil and enjoying the scenery. It was such
a place as one feels to be on the outside of the
earth ; for from it we could, in some measure,
see the form and structure of the globe. There
lay Wachusett, the object of our journey, low-
ering upon us with unchanged proportions,
though with a less ethereal aspect than had
greeted our morning gaze, while further north,
in successive order, slumbered its sister moun-
tains along the horizon.
' We could get no further into the MneiA than

— atque altn moBnia RomsB,

— and the wall of high Rome,

before we were constrained to reflect by what
myriad tests a work of genius has to be tried;
that Virgil, away in Some, two thousand years
off, should have to unfold his meaning, the in-
spiration of Italian vales, to the pilgrim on New
England hills. This life so raw and modem,
that so civil and ancient ; and yet we read Vir-
gil, mainly to be reminded of the identity of
human nature in all ages, and, by the poet's
own account, we are both the children of a late
age, and live equally under the reign of Jupiter.

'^ He shook honey from the leaves, and removed fire,
And stayed the wine, everywhere flowing in rivers ;
That experience, by meditating, might invent various arts
By degrees, and seek the blade of com in fnrrows,
And strike out hidden fire from the veins of the flint."

170 A WALK TO WACHUSETT

The old world stands serenely behind the
new, as one mountain yonder towers behind
another, more dim and distant. Kome imposes
her story still upon this late generation. The
very children in the school we h^d that morning
passed had gone through her wars, and recited
her alarms, ere they had heard of the wars of
neighboring Lancaster. The roving eye stiU
rests inevitably on her hills, and she still holds
up the skirts of the sky on that side, and makes
the past remote.

The lay of the land hereabouts is well worthy
the attention of the traveler. The hill on which
we were resting made part of an extensive
range, running from southwest to northeast,
across the coimtry, and separating the waters of
the Nashua from those of the Concord, whose
banks we had left in the morning, and by bear-
ing in mind this fact, we could easily determine
whither each brook was bound that crossed our
path. Parallel to this, and fifteen miles further
west, beyond the deep and broad valley in which
lie Groton, Shirley, Lancaster, and Boylston,
runs the Wachusett range, in the same general
direction. The descent into the valley on the
Nashua side is by far the most sudden ; and a
couple of miles brought us to the southern
branch of the Nashua, a shallow but rapid
stream, flowing between high and gravelly

A WALK TO WACUUSETT 171

banks. But we soon learned that there were
no gelidoe voiles into which we had descended,
and, missing the coolness of the morning air,
feared it had become the sun's turn to try his
power upon us.

'^ The sultry sun had gained the middle sky,
And not a tree, and not an herb was nigh,"

and with melancholy pleasure we echoed the
melodious plaint of our fellow-traveler, Hassan,
in the desert, —

"" Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
When first from Schiraz* walls I bent my way."

The air lay lifeless between the hills, as in a
jseething caldron, with no leaf stirring, and in-
stead of the fresh odor of grass and clover, with
which we had before been regaled, the dry scent
of every herb seemed merely medicinal. Yield-
ing, therefore, to the heat, we strolled into the
woods, and along the course of a rivulet, on
whose banks we loitered, observing at our leisure
the products of these new fields. He who tra-
verses the woodland paths, at this season, will
have occasion to remember the small, drooping,
bell-like flowers and slender red stem of the
dogsbane, and the coarser stem and berry of
the poke, which are both common in remoter
and wilder scenes; and if '^the sun casts such a
reflecting heat from the sweet-fern" as makes

172 A WALK TO WACUUSETT

him faint, when he is climbing the bare hills,
as they complained who first penetrated into
these parts, the cool fragrance of the swamp
pink restores him again, when traversing the
valleys between.

As we went on our way late in the afternoon,
we refreshed ourselves by bathing our feet in
every riU that crossed the road, and anon, as
we were able to walk in the shadows of the
hills, recovered our morning elasticity. Passing
through Sterling, we reached the banks of the
Stillwater, in the western part of the town, at
evening, where is a small village collected. We
fancied that there was already a certain western
look about this place, a smell of pines and roar
of water, recently confined by dams, belying
its name, which were exceedingly grateful.
When the first inroad has been made, a few
acres leveled, and a few houses erected, the
forest looks wilder than ever. Left to herself,
/\iature is always more or less civilized, and de-
lights in a certain refinement; but where the
axe has encroached upon the edge of the forest,
the dead and unsightly limbs of the pine, which
she had concealed with green banks of verdure,
are exposed to sight. This village had, as yet,
no post-o£Bice, nor any settled name. In the
small villages which we entered, the villagers
gazed after us, with a complacent, almost com-

A WALK TO WACUUSETT 173

passionate look, as if we were just making our
dShut in the world at a late hour. "Neverthe-
less," did they seem to say, "come and study
us, and learn men and manners." So is each
one's world but a clearing in the forest, so much
open and inclosed ground. The landlord had
not yet returned from the field with his men,
and the cows had yet to be milked. But we
remembered the inscription on the wall of the
Swedish inn, "You will find at Trolhate excel-
lent bread, meat, and wine, provided you bring
them with you," and were contented. But I
must confess it did somewhat disturb our plea-
sure, in this withdrawn spot, to have our own
village newspaper handed us by our host, as if
the greatest charm the country offered to the
traveler was the facility of communication with
the town. Let it recline on its own everlasting
hills, and not be looking out from their sum-
mits for some petty Boston or New York in the
horizon.

At intervals we heard the murmuring of
water, and the slimiberous breathing of crickets,
throughout the night ; and left the inn the next
morning in the gray twilight, after it had been
hallowed by the night air, and when only the
innocent cows were stirring, with a kind of re-
gret. It was only four miles to the base of the
mountain, and the scenery was already more

174 A WALK TO WACHUSETT

picturesque. Our road lay along the course of
the Stillwater, which was brawling at the bot-
tom of a deep ravine, filled with pines and
rocks, tumbling fresh from the mountains, so
soon, alas! to commence its career of useful-
ness. At first, a cloud hung between us and
the summit, but it was soon blown away. As
we gathered the raspberries, which grew abun-
dantly by the roadside, we fancied that that
action was consistent with a lofty prudence; as
if the traveler who ascends into a mountainous
region should fortify himself by eating of such
light ambrosial fruits as grow there, and drink-
ing of the springs which gush out from the
mountain sides, as he gradually inhales the
subtler and purer atmosphere of those elevated
places, thus propitiating the mountain gods by
a sacrifice of their own fruits. The gross pro-
ducts of the plains and valleys are for such as
dwell therein ; but it seemed to us that the juices
of this berry had relation to the tibin air of the
mountain-tops.

In due time we began to ascend the moun-
tain, passing, first, through a grand sugar-ma-
ple wood, which bore the marks of the auger,
then a denser forest, which gradually became
dwarfed, till there were no trees whatever. We
at length pitched our tent on the summit. It is
but nineteen hundred feet above the village of

A WALK TO WACHUSETT 175

Princeton, and three thousand above the level
of the sea; but by this slight elevation it is in-
finitely removed from the plain, and when we
reached it we felt a sense of remoteness, as if
we had traveled into distant regions, to Arabia
Petrsea, or the farthest east. A robin upon a
stafE was the highest object in sight. Swallows
were flying about us, and the chewink and
cuckoo were heard near at hand. The summit
consists of a few acres, destitute of trees, cov-
ered with bare rocks, interspersed with blue-
berry bushes, raspberries, gooseberries, straw-
berries, moss, and a fine wiry grass. The
common yellow lily and dwarf -cornel grow
abundantly in the crevices of the rocks. This
clear space, which is gently rounded, is bounded
a few feet lower by a thick shrubbery of oaks,
with maples, aspens, beeches, cherries, and occa-
sionally a mountain-ash intermingled, among
which we found the bright blue berries of the
Solomon's seal, and the fruit of the pyrola.
From the foundation of a wooden observatory,
which was formerly erected on the highest
point, forming a rude, hollow structure of stone,
a dozen feet in diameter, and five or six in
height, we could see Monadnock, in simple
grandeur, in the northwest, rising nearly a thou-
sand feet higher, still the ^'far blue mountain,"
though with an altered profile. The first day

176 A WALK TO WACHUSETT

the weather was so hazy that it was in vain we
endeavored to unravel the obscurity. It was
like Rooking into the s^ again, and the patches
of forest here and there seemed to flit like
clouds over a lower heaven. As to voyagers of
an aerial Polynesia, the earth seemed like a
larger island in the ether; on every side, even
as low as we, the sky shutting down, like
an unfathomable deep, around it, a blue Pacific
island, where who knows what islanders inhabit?
and as we sail near its shores we see the waving
of trees and hear the lowing of kine.

We read Virgil and Wordsworth in our tent,
with new pleasure there, while waiting for a
clearer atmosphere, nor did the weather prevent
our appreciating the simple truth and beauty of
Peter Bell : —

" And he had lain beside his asses,
On lofty Cheviot hills ;

** And he had trudged through Yorkshire dales,
Among the rocks and winding scars.
Where deep and low the hamlets lie
Beneath their little patch of sky,
And little lot of stars."

Who knows but this hill may one day be a
Helvellyn, or even a Parnassus, and the Muses
haunt here, and other Homers frequent the
neighboring plains ?

Not unconcerned Wachusett rears his head
Above the field, so late from nature won,

With patient brow reserved, as one who read
New annals in the history of man.

A WALK TO WACHUSETT 111

The blueberries which the mountain a£Eorded,
added to the milk we had brought, made our
frugal supper, while for entertainment the even-
song of the wood-thrush rang along the ridge.
Our eyes rested on no painted ceiling nor car-
peted hall, but on skies of nature's painting,
and hills and forests of her embroidery. Before
sunset, we rambled along the ridge to the north,
while a hawk soared still above us. It was a
place where gods might wander, so solemn and
solitary, and removed from all contagion with
the plain. As the evening came on, the haze
was condensed in vapor, and the landscape be-
came more distinctly visible, and numerous
sheets of water were brought to light.

Et jam samina procnl ymarum culmina fnmant,
Majoresqne cadnnt altis de montibns umbrsB.

And now the tops of the villas smoke afar off,

And the shadows fall longer from the high monntains.

As we stood on the stone tower while the sun
was setting, we saw the shades of night creep
gradually over the valleys of the east, and the
inhabitants went into their houses, and shut
their doors, while the moon silently rose up, and
took possession of that part. And then the
same scene was repeated on the .west side, as far
as the Connecticut and the Green Mountains,
and the sun's rays fell on us two alone, of all
New England men.

178 A WALK TO WACHUSETT

It was the night but one before the full of the
moon, so bright that we could see to read dis-
tinctly by moonlight, and in the evening strolled
over the summit without danger. There was,
by chance, a fire blazing on Monadnock that
night, which Kghted up the whole western hori-
zon, and, by making us aware of a conunimity
of mountains, made our position seem less soli-
tary. But at length the wind drove us to the
shelter of our tent, and we closed its door for
the night, and fell asleep.

It was thrilling to hear the wind roar over
the rocks, at intervals when we waked, for it
had grown quite cold and windy. The night
was in its elements, simple even to majesty in
that bleak place, — a bright moonlight and a
piercing wind. It was at no time darker than
twilight within the tent, and we could easily see
the moon through its transparent roof as we lay ;
for there was the moon still above us, with Jupi-
ter and Saturn on either hand, looking down
on Wachusett, and it was a satisfaction to know
that they were our fellow-travelers still, as high
and out of our reach as our own destiny. Truly
the stars were given for a consolation to man.
We should not know but our life were fated to
be always groveling, but it is permitted to be-
hold them, and surely they are deserving of a
fair destiny. We see laws which never fail, of

A WALK TO WACHUSETT 179

whose failure we never conceived; and their
lamps bum all the night, too, as well as all day,
— so rich and lavish is that nature which can
afford this superfluity of light.

The morning twilight began as soon as the
moon had' set, and we arose and kindled our
fire, whose blaze might have been seen for thirty
miles around. As the daylight increased, it
was remarkable how rapidly the wind went
-down. There was no dew on the summit, but
coldness supplied its place. When the dawn
had reached its prime, we enjoyed the view of a
distinct horizon line, and could fancy ourselves
at sea, and the distant hills the waves in the
horizon, as seen from the deck of a vessel.
The cherry-birds flitted around us, the nuthatch
and flicker were heard among the bushes, the
titmouse perched within a few feet, and the song
of the wood-thrush agam rang along the ridge.
At length we saw the sun rise up out of the sea,
and shine on Massachusetts ; and from this mo-
ment the atmosphere grew more and more trans-
parent till the time of our departure, and we
began to realize the extent of the view, and how
the earth, in some degree, answered to the hea*.
vens in breadth, the white villages to the con*
stellations in the sky. There was little of the
sublimity and grandeur which belong to moun-
tain scenery, but 2^ immense landscape to pon-

180 A WALK TO WACHUSETT

der on a summer's day. We could see how
ample and roomy is nature. As far as the eye
could reach there was little life in the landscape ;
the few birds that flitted past did not crowd.
The travelers on the remote highways, which in-
tersect the country on every side, had no fellow-
travelers for miles, before or behind. On
every side, the eye ranged over successive circles
of towns, rising one above another, like the ter-
races of a vineyard, till they were lost in the
horizon. Wachusett is, in fact, the observatory
of the State. There lay Massachusetts, spread
out before us in its length and breadth, like a
map. There was the level horizon, which told
of the sea on the east and south, the well-known
hills of New Hampshire on the north, and the
misty summits of the Hoosac and Green Moun-
tains, first made visible to us the evening be-
fore, blue and unsubstantial, like some bank of
clouds which the morning wind would dissipate,
on the. northwest and west. These last distant
ranges on which the eye rests unwearied, com-
mence with an abrupt bowlder in the north,
beyond the Connecticut, and travel southward,
with three or four peaks dimly seen. But Mo-
nadnock, rearing its masculine front in the north-
west, is the grandest feature. As we beheld it,
we knew that it was the height of land between
the two rivers, on this side the valley of the

A WALK TO WACHUSETT 181

Merrimack, on that of the Connecticut, fluctuat-
ing with their blue seas of air, — these rival
vales, already teeming with Yankee men along
their respective streams, bom to what destiny
who shall tell? Watatic and the neighboring
hills, in this State and in New Hampshire, are a
continuation of the same elevated range on which
we were standing. But that New Hampshire
bluff, — that promontory of a State, — lowering
day and night on this our State of Massachusetts,
will longest haunt our dreams.

We could at length realize the place moun-
tains occupy on the land, and how they come into
the general scheme of the universe. When first
we climb their summits and observe their lesser
irregularities, we do not give credit to the com-
prehensive intelligence which shaped them; but
when afterward we behold their outlines m the
horizon, we confess that the hand which moulded
their opposite slopes, making one to balance the
other^ worked round a deep centre, and was privy
to the plan of the universe. So is the least part
of nature in its bearings referred to all space.
These lesser mountain ranges, as well as the Al-
leghanies, run from northeast to southwest, and
parallel with these mountain streams are the
more fluent rivers, answering to the general di-
rection of the coast, the bank of the great ocean
stream itself. Even the clouds, with their thin

182 A WALK TO WACHUSETT

bars, fall into the same direction by preference,
and such even is the course of the prevailing
winds, and the migration of men and birds. A
mountain-chain determines many things for the
statesman and philosopher* The improvements
of civilization rather creep along its sides than
cross its summit. How often is it a barrier to
prejudice and fanaticism? In passing over these
heights of land, through their thin atmosphere,
the follies of the plain are refined and purified ;
and as many species of plants do not scale their
siunmits, so many species of folly no doubt do
not cross the AUeghanies ; it is only the hardy
mountain-plant that creeps quite over the ridge,
and descends into the valley beyond.

We get a dim notion of the flight of birds,
especially of such as fly high in the air, by having
ascended a mountain. We can now see what
landmarks mountains are to their migrations;
how the Catskills and Highlands have hardly
sunk to them, when Wachusett and Monadnock
open a passage to the northeast ; how they are
guided, too, in their course by the rivers and
valleys ; and who knows but by the stars, as well
as the moimtain ranges, and not by the petty
landmarks which we use. The bird whose eye
takes in the Green Mountains on the one side,
and the ocean on the other, need not be at a loss
to find its way.

A WALK TO WACHUSETT 183

At noon we descended the mountain, and,
having returned to the abodes of men, turned our
faces to the east again ; measuring our progress,
from time to time, by the more ethereal hues
which the mountain assumed. Passing swiftly
through Stillwater and Sterling, as with a down-
ward impetus, we found ourselves almost at
home again in the green meadows of Lancaster,
so like our own Concord, for both are watered
by two streams which unite near their centres,
and have many other features in common. There
is an unexpected refinement about this scenery ;
level prairies of great extent, interspersed with
elms and hop-fields and groves of trees, give it
almost a classic appearance. This, it will be
remembered, was the scene of Mrs. Eowland-
son's capture, and of other events in the Indian
wars, but from this July afternoon, and under
that mild exterior, those times seemed as remote
as the irruption of the Goths. They were the
dark age of New England. On beholding a
picture of a New England village as it then ap-
peared, with a fair open prospect, and a light on
trees and river, as if it were broad noon, we find
we had not thought the sun shone in those days,
or that men lived in broad daylight then. We
do not imagine the sun shining on hiU and valley
during Philip's war, nor on the war-path of
Paugus, or Standish, or Chui'ch, or LoveU, with

184 A WALK TO WACHUSETT

serene summer weather, but a dim twilight or
night did those events transpire in. They must
have fought in the shade of their own dusky
deeds.

At length, as we plodded along the dusty
roads, our thoughts became as dusty as they;
all thought indeed stopped, thinking broke
down, or proceeded only passively in a sort of
rhythmical cadence of the confused material of
thought, and we found ourselves mechanically
repeating some familiar measure which timed
with our tread; some verse of the Robin Hood
ballads, for instance, which one can recommend
to travel by : —

'* Sweayens are swift, sayd lyttle John,
As the wind blows over the hill ;
For if it be never so loud this night,
To-morrow it may be still."

And so it went up hill and down till a stone
interrupted the line, when a new verse was
chosen : —

'' His shoote it was but loosely shot,
Yet flewe not the arrowe in vaine,
For it met one of the sherifFe's men,
And WiUiam-a-Trent was slaine/'

There is, however, this consolation to the
most wayworn traveler, upon the dustiest road,
that the path his feet describe is so perfectly
symbolical of human life, — now climbing the

A WALK TO WACHUSETT 185

hills, now descending into the vales. From the
summits he beholds the heavens and the hori-
zon, from the vales he looks up to the heights
again. He is treading his old lessons still, and
though he may be very weary and travel- worn,
it is yet sincere experience.

Leaving the Nashua, we changed our route a
little, and arrived at Stillriver Village, in the
western part of Harvard, just as the sun was
setting. From this place, which lies to the
northward, upon the western slope of the same
range of hiUs on which we had spent the noon
before, in the adjacent town, the prospect is
beautiful, and the grandeur of the mountain
outlines unsurpassed. There was such a repose
and quiet here at this hour, as if the very hill-
sides were enjoying the scene, and as we passed
slowly along, looking back over the country we
had traversed, and listening to the evening song
of the robin, we could not help contrasting the
equanimity of nature with the bustle and impa-
tience of man. His words and actions presume
always a crisis near at hand, but she is forever
silent and unpretending.

And now that we have returned to the desul-
tory life of the plain, let us endeavor to import
a little of that mountain grandeur into it. We
will remember within what walls we lie, and
understand that this level life too has its sum-

186 A WALK TO WACHUSETT

mit, and why from the mountain-top the deepest
valleys have a tinge of blue; that there is ele-
vation in every hour, as no part of the earth is
so low that the heavens may not be seen from,
and we have only to stand on the summit of our
hour to command an uninterrupted horizon.

We rested that night at Harvard, and the
next morning, while one bent his steps to the
nearer village of Groton, the other took his sep-
arate and solitary way to the peaceful meadows
of Concord; but let him not forget to record
the brave hospitality of a farmer and his wife,
who generously entertained him at their board,
though the poor wayfarer could only congratu-
late the one on the continuance of hay weather,
and silently accept the kindness of the other.
Kefreshed by this instance of generosity, no
less than by the substantial viands set before
him, he pushed forward with new vigor, and
reached the banks of the Concord before the sun
had climbed many degrees into the heavens.

THE LANDLORD

Under the one word "house " are included
the school-house, the alms-house, the jail, the
tavern, the dwelling-house; and the meanest
shed or cave in which men live contains the ele-
ments of all these. But nowhere on the earth
stands the entire and perfect house. The Par-
thenon, St. Peter's, the Gothic minster, the
palace, the hovel, are but imperfect executions
of an imperfect idea. Who would dwell in
them ? Perhaps to the eye of the gods the cot-
tage is more holy than the Parthenon, for they
look . down with no especial favor upon the
shrines formally dedicated to them, and that
should be the most sacred roof which shelters
most of humanity. Surely, then, the gods who
are most interested in the human race preside
over the Tavern, where especially men congre-
gate. Methinks I see the thousand shrines
erected to Hospitality shining afar in all coun-
tries, as well Mahometan and Jewish, as Chris-
tian, khans and caravansaries and inns, whither
all pilgrims without distinction resort.

Likewise we look in vain, east or west over

188 THE LANDLORD

the earth, to find the perfect man; but each
represents only some particular excellence.
The Landlord is a man of more open and gen-
eral sympathies, who possesses a spirit of hos-
pitality which is its own reward, and feeds and
shelters men from pure love of the creatures.
To be sure, this profession is as often filled by
imperfect characters, and such as have sought
it from unworthy motives, as any other, but so
much the more should we prize the true and
honest Landlord when we meet with him. j

Who has not imagined to himself a country '

inn, where the traveler shall really feel m, and j

at home, and at his public-house, who was be-
fore at his private house; whose host is indeed
a Tu)8t^ and a lord of the land^ a self-appointed \

brother of his race ; called to his place, beside, I

by all the winds of heaven and his good genius,
as truly as the preacher is called to preach; a
man of such universal sympathies, and so broad
and genial a human nature, that he would fain
sacrifice the tender but narrow ties of private
friendship, to a broad, sunshiny, fair-weather-
and-foul friendship for his race ; who loves men,
not as a philosopher, with philanthropy, nor as
an overseer of the poor, with charity, but by a
necessity of his nature, as he loves dogs and
horses; and standing at his open door from \

morning till night would fain see more and more

THE LANDLORD 189

of them come along the highway, and is never
satiated. To him the sun and moon are but
travelers, the one by day and the other by night;
and they too patronize his house. To his im-
agination all things travel save his sign-post
and himself; and though you may be his neigh-
bor for years, he will show you only the civili-
ties of the road. But on the other hand, while
nations and individuals are alike selfish and
exclusive, he loves all men equally; and if he
treats his nearest neighbor as a stranger, since
he has invited all nations to share his hospital-
ity, the farthest traveled is in some measure
kindred to him who takes him into the bosom of
his family.

He keeps a house of entertainment at the sign
of the Black Horse or the Spread Eagle, and is
known far and wide, and his fame travels with
increasing radius every year. All the neigh-
borhood is in his interest, and if the traveler
ask how far to a tavern, he receives some such
answer as this: "Well, sir, there's a house
about three miles from here, where they have n't

> taken down their sign yet; but it's only ten

miles to Slocimi's, and that 's a capital house,
both for man and beast." At three miles he
passes a cheerless barrack, standing desolate

i, behind its sign-post, neither public nor private,

and has glimpses of a discontented couple who

190 THE LANDLORD

have mistaken their calling. At ten miles see
where the Tavern stands, — really an entertain-'
ing prospect, — so public and inviting that only
the rain and snow do not enter. It is no gay
pavilion, made of bright stuffs, and furnished
with nuts and gingerbread, but as plain and sin-
cere as a caravansary; located in no Tarrytown,
where you receive only the civilities of com-
merce, but far in the fields it exercises a primi-
tive hospitality, amid the fresh scent of new
hay and raspberries, if it be summer time, and
the tinkling of cow-bells from invisible pas-
tures ; for it is a land flowing with milk and
honey, and the newest milk courses in a broad,
deep stream across the premises.

In these retired places the tavern is first of
all a house, — elsewhere, last of all, or never, —
and warms and shelters its inhabitants. It is
as simple and sincere in its essentials as the
caves in which the first men dwelt, but it is also
as open and public. The traveler steps across
the threshold, and lo ! he too is master, for he
only can be called proprietor of the house here
who behaves with most propriety in it. The
Landlord stands clear back in nature, to my
imagination, with his axe and spade felling
trees and raising potatoes with the vigor of a
pioneer; with Promethean energy making na-
ture yield her increase to supply the wants of

THE LANDLORD 191

so many ; and he is not so exhausted, nor of so
short a stride, but that he comes forward even
to the highway to this wide hospitality and pub-
licity. Surely, he has solved some of the prob-
lems of life. He comes in at his back door,
holding a log fresh cut for the hearth upon his
shoulder with one hand, while he greets the
newly arrived traveler with the other.

Here at length we have free range, as not in
palaces, nor cottages, nor temples, and intrude
nowhere. All the secrets of housekeeping are
exhibited to the eyes of men, above and below,
before and behind. This is the necessary way
to live, men have confessed, in these days, and
shall he skulk and hide? And why should we
have any serious disgust at kitchens ? Perhaps
they are the holiest recess of the house. There
is the hearth, after all, — and the settle, and
the fagots, and the kettle, and the crickets.
We have pleasant reminiscences of these. They
are the heart, the left ventricle, the very vital
part of the house. Here the real and sincere
life which we meet in the streets was actually
fed and sheltered. Here burns the taper that
cheers the lonely traveler by night, and from
this hearth ascend the smokes that populate the
valley to his eyes by day. On the whole, a
man may not be so little ashamed of any other
part of his house, for here is his sincerity and

192 THE LANDLORD

earnest, at least. It may not be here that the
besoms are plied most, — it is not here that they
need to be, for dust will not settle on the kitchen
floor more than in nature.

Hence it will not do for the Landlord to pos-
sess too fine a nature. He must have health
above the common accidents of life, subject to
no modem fashionable diseases; but no taste,
rather a vast relish or appetite. His sentiments
on all subjects will be delivered as freely as the
wind blows ; there is nothing private or indivi-
dual in them, though still original, but they are
public, and of the hue of the heavens over his
house, — a certain out-of-door obviousness and
transparency not to be disputed. What he
does, his manners are not to be complained of,
though abstractly offensive, for it is what man
does, and in him the race is exhibited. When
he eats, he is liver and bowels and the whole
digestive apparatus to the company, and so all
admit the thing is done. He must have no
idiosyncrasies, no particular bents or tendencies
to this or that, but a genera], uniform, and
healthy development, such as his portly person
indicates, offering himself equally on all sides
to men. He is not one of your peaked and in-
hospitable men of genius, with particular tastes,
but, as we said before, has one uniform relish,
and taste which never aspires higher than a

THE LANDLORD 193

tavern-sign, or the cut of a weather-cock. The
man of genius, like a dog with a bone, or the
slave who has swallowed a diamond, or a patient
with the gravel, sits afar and retired, off the
road, hangs out no sign of refreshment for man
and beast, but says, by all possible hints and
signs, I wish to be alone, — good-by , — farewell.
But the Landlord can afford to live without
privacy. He entertains no private thought, he
cherishes no solitary hour, no Sabbath-day, but
thinks, — enough to assert the dignity of reason,
— and talks, and reads the newspaper. What
he does not tell to one traveler he tells to an-
other. He never wants to be alone, but sleeps,
wakes, eats, drinks, sociably, stiU remembering
his race. He walks abroad through the thoughts
of men, and the Iliad and Shakespeare are tame
to him, who hears the rude but homely incidents
of the road from every traveler. The mail
might drive through his brain in the midst of
his most lonely soliloquy, without disturbing
his equanimity, provided it brought plenty of
news and passengers. There can be no pro*
fanity where there is no fane behind, and the
whole world may see quite round him. Per-
chance his lines have fallen to him in dustier
places, and he has heroically sat down where
two roads meet, or at the Four Comers or the
Five Points, and his life is sublimely trivial for

194 THE LANDLORD

the good of men. The dust of travel blows
ever in his eyes, and they preserve their clear,
complacent look. The hourlies and half -hour-
lies, the dailies and weeklies, whirl on weU-wom
tracks, round and round his house, as if it were
the goal in the stadium, and still he sits within
in unrufi3ed serenity, with no show of retreat.
His neighbor dwells timidly behind a screen of
poplars and willows, and a fence with sheaves
of spears at regular intervals, or defended
against the tender palms of visitors by sharp
spikes, — but the traveler's wheels rattle over
the door-step of the tavern, and he cracks his
whip in the entry. He is truly glad to see you,
and sincere as the bull's-eye over his door.
The traveler seeks to find, wherever he goes,
some one who will stand in this broad and cath-
olic relation to him, who will be an inhabitant
of the land to him a stranger, and represent its
human nature, as the rock stands for its inani-
mate nature ; and this is he. As his crib fur-
nishes provender for the traveler's horse, and
his larder provisions for his appetite, so his con-
versation furnishes the necessary aliment to his
spirits. He knows very well what a man wants,
for he is a man himself, and as it were the far-
thest traveled, though he has never stirred from
his door. He understands his needs and des-
tiny. He woidd be well fed and lodged, there

THE LANDLORD 195

can be no doubt, and have the transient sym-
pathy of a cheerful companion, and of a heart
which always prophesies fair weather. And
after all the greatest men, even, want much
more the sympathy which every honest fellow
can give, than that which the great only can
impart. If he is not the most upright, let us
allow him this praise, that he is the most down-
right of men. He has a hand to shake and to
be shaken, and takes a sturdy and unquestion-
able interest in you, as if he had assumed the
care of you, but if you will break your neck, he
will even give you the best advice as to the
method.

The great poets have not been ungrateful to
their landlords. Mine host of the Tabard Inn,
in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, was
an honor to his profession : —

** A semely man onr Hoste was, with alle,
For to ban been a marshal in an halle.
A large man he was, with eyen stepe ;
A fairer bnrg^is was ther non in Chepe :
Bold of bis specbe, and wise, and well ytaught,
And of manhood him lacked rigbte naught.
Eke thereto was be right a mery man,
And after sonper plaien he began.
And spake of mirthe amonges other thinges.
Whan that we badden made our reckoninges."

He is the true house-band, and centre of the
company, — of greater fellowship and practical

196 THE LANDLORD

social talent than any. He it is that proposes
that each shall tell a tale to while away the time
to Canterbury, iand leads them himself, and
concludes with his own tale, —

'* Now, by my fader's soiile that is ded,
But ye be mery, smiteth of my bed :
Hold up your hondes "withoaten more specbe.''

If we do not look up to the Landlord, we look
round for him on all emergencies, for he is a
man of infinite experience, who unites hands
with wit. He is a more public character than
a statesman, — a publican, and not consequently
a sinner; and surely, he, if any, should be ex-
empted from taxation and military duty.

Talking with our host is next best and in-
structive to talking with one's self. It is a
more conscious soliloquy; as it were, to speak
generally, and try what we would say provided
we had an audience. He has indulgent and
open ears, and does not require petty and par-
ticular statements. " Heigh-ho 1 " exclaims the
traveler. Them 's my sentiments, thinks mine
host, and stands ready for what may come next,
expressing the purest sympathy by his de-
meanor. "Hot as blazes!" says the other.
" Hard weather, sir, — not much stirring nowa-
days," says he. He is wiser than to contradict
his guest in any case; he lets him go on; he
lets him travel.

THE LANDLORD 197

The latest sitter leaves him standing far in
the night, prepared to live right on, while sua^-
rise and set, and his ^^ good-night " has as 1j)(jbk
a sound as his "good-moming;" and theearli-,
est riser finds him tasting his liquors in the bp^r
ere flies begin to buzz^ with a countenance fresh
as. the morning star over the sanded floor, —
and not as one who had watched all. night for
travelers. And yet, if beds be the siibject of
conversation, it will appear that no mdji has
been a sounder sleeper in his time. \

Finally, as for his moral character, we do Aot
hesitate to say that he has no grain of vice ar
meanness in him, but represents just that degr«^
of virtue which all men relish without being
obliged to respect. He is a good man, as his
bitters are good, — an unquestionable goodness.
Not what is called a good man, — good to be
considered, as a work of art in galleries and
museums, — but a good fellow, that is, good to
be associated with. Who ever thought of the

V religion of an inn-keeper, — whether he was

joined to the Church, partook of the sacrament,

t said his prayers, feared God, or the like ? No

doubt he has had his experiences, has felt a
change, and is a firm believer in the persever-
ance of the saints. In this last, we suspect,

\ does the peculiarity of his religion consist. But

he keeps an inn, and not a conscience. How

198 THE LANDLORD

grant charities and sincere social vir-
mplied in this daily offering of himself
iblic I He cherishes good-will to all,
the wayfarer as good and honest ad-
rect him on Us road as the priest,
iclude, the tavern will compare favor-
ably with tli€ church. The chnrch is the place
where pr^^yers and sermons are delivered, hut.
the tavern is where they are to take effect, and
if the- former are good, tiie latter cannot be
bad<'

A WINTER WALK

The wind has gently murmured tlirough the
blinds, or puffed with feathery softness against
the windows, and occasionaUy sighed like a
summer zephyr lifting the leaves along, the
livelong night. The meadow-mouse has slept
in his snug gallery in the sod, the owl has sat
in a hollow tree in the depth of the swamp, the
rabbit, the squirrel, and the fox have all been
housed. The watch-dog has lain quiet on the
hearth, and the cattle have stood silent in their
stalls. The earth itself has slept, as it were
its first, not its last sleep, save when some
street-sign or wood-house door has faintly
creaked upon its hinge, cheering forlorn nature
at her midnight work, — the only sound awake
'twixt Venus and Mars, — advertising us of a
remote inward warmth, a divine cheer and fel-
lowship, where gods are met together, but where
it is very bleak for men to stand. But while
the earth has slumbered, all the air has been
alive with feathery flakes descending, as if some
•'^Hhern Ceres reigned, showering her silvery
-^ over all the fields.

299 A WINTER WALK

We sleep, and at length awake to the still
reality of a winter morning. The snow _lie8
warm as cotton or down upon the window-sill;
the broadened fash and frosted panes admit a
dimand private light, which enhances the snug
cheer_within. The^^tillness of the morning is
i mpres sive. The floor creaks under our feet as
we move toward the window to look abroad
through some clear space over the fields. We
see the ^roofs stand under their snow burden.
From the e^ves and fences hang stalactites of
snow, and in the yard stand stalagmites cover-
ing some concealed core. The trees and shrubs
rear white arms to the sky on every sidefand
where were walls and fences, we see fantastic
forms stretching in frolic gambols across the
dusky landscape, as if nature had strewn her
fresh designs over the fields"by night as models
for man's art.

Silently we unlatch the door, letting the drift
fall in, and step abroad to face the cutting sqt.
Already the stars have lost some of their
sparkle, and a dull, leaden mist skirts the hori-
zon. A lurid brazen light in the east proclaims
the approach of day, while the western land-
scape is dim and spectral still, and clothed in a
sombre Tartarian light, like the shadowy realms.
They are Infernal sounds only that you heai
the crowing of cocks, the barking of dogs^

A WINTER WALK 2«1

chopping of wood, the lomng of kine, all seem
to come from Pluto's barn-yard and beyond the
Styx, — not for any melancholy they suggest,
but their twilight bustle is too solemn and mys-
terious for earth. The recent tracks of the fox
or otter, in the yard, remind us that each hour
of the night is crow ded with events, and the
primeval nature is still working and making
tracks in the snow. Opening the gate, we tread
briskly along the lone country road, cr unch ing
the dry and crisped snow under our feet, or
aroused by the shaj^ clear creak of the wood
sled, just starting for the distant market, from
the early farmer's door, where it has lain the
summer long, dreaming amid the chips and stub-
. ble; while far through the drifts and powdered
windows we see the farmer's early candle, like
a paled star, emitting a lonely beam, as if some
severe virtue were at its matins there. And one
by Qne the sm.^fis begin to ascend from the
chimneys amid the trees and snows.

9 The slnggish smoke cnrls ap from some deep dell,

The stiffened air exploring in the dawn,

I And making slow acquaintance with the day

Delaying noW upon its heavenward oonrse,
In wreathed loiteringps dallying wiiih itself,
With as uncertain purpose and slow deed
As its half-wakened master by the hearth,

^ Whose mind still slumbering and sluggish thoughts

Have not yet swept into the onward current

i Of the new day ; — and now it streams afar,

202 A WINTER WALK

The while the chopper goes with step direct,
And mind intent to swing the early axe.

First in the dusky dawn he sends abroad
His early scoat, his emissary, smoke,
The earliest, latest pilgrim from the roof,
To feel the frosty air, inform the day ;
And while he crouches still beside the hearth.
Nor musters courage to unbar the door,
It has gone down the glen with the light wind,
And o^er the plain unfurled its venturous wreath,
Draped the tree-tops, loitered upon the hill.
And warmed the pinions of the early bird ;
And now, perchance, high in the crispy air.
Has caught sight of the day o'er the earth's edge.
And g^reets its master's eye at his low door.
As some refulgent cloud in the upper sky.

We hear the sound of wood-chopping at the
farmers' doors, far over the frozen earth, the
baying of the house-dog, and the distant clarion
of the cock, — though the thin and frosty air
conveys only the finer particles of sound to our
ears, with short and sweet vibrations, as the
waves subside soonest on the purest and lightest
liquids, in which gross substances sink to the
bottom. They come clear and bell-like, and
from a greater distance in the horizon, as if
there were fewer impediments than in summer to
make them faint and ragged. The ground is
sonorous, like seasoned wood, and even the or-
dinary rural sounds are melodious, and the jing-
ling of ^the ice on the trees is sweet and liquid.
There is the least possible moisture in the at-

A WINTER WALK 203

mospheie, all being dried up, or congealed, and
it is of such extreme tenuity and elasticity that
it becomes a source of delight. The withdrawn
and tense sky seems groined like the aisles of a
cathedral, and the polished air sparkles as if
there were crystals of ice floating in it. As
they who have resided in Greenland tell us
that when it freezes ^Hhe sea smokes like burn-
ing turf -land, and a fog or mist arises, called
frost-smoke," which "cutting smoke frequently
raises blisters on the face and hands, and is very
pernicious to the health." But this pure sting-
ing cold is an elixir to the lungs, and not so
much a frozen mist as a crystallized midsum-
mer haze, refined and purified by cold.

The sun at length rises through the distant
woods, as if with the faint clashing swinging
sound of cymbals, melting the air with his beams,
and with such rapid steps the morning travels,
that already his rays are gilding the distant
western mountains. Meanwhile we step hastily
along through the powdery snow, warmed by an
inward heat, enjoying an Indian summer still,
in the increased glow of thought and feeling.
Probably if our lives were more conformed to
nature, we should not need to defend ourselves
against her heats and colds, but find her our
constant nurse and friend, as do plants and
quadrupeds. If our bodies were fed with pure

204 A WINTER WALK

and simple elements, and not with a stimulating
and heating diet, they would afford no mor^
pasture for cold than a leafless twig, but thrive
like the trees, which find even winter genial to
their expansion.
\ The wonderful puriiy of nature at this season* j

is a most pleasing fact. Every decayed stump I

and moss-grown stone and rail, and the dead .
leaves of autumn, are concealed by a clean nap-
kin of snow. In the bare fields and tinkling
woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest
and bleakest places, the warmest charities still j

maintain a foothold. A cold and searching
wind drives away aU contagion, and nothing can
withstand it but what has a virtue in it, and ac-
cordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and
bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we re- *

spect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan
toughness. All things beside seem to be called
in for shelter, and what stays out must be part
of the original frame of the universe, and of
such valor as God himself. It is invigorating <

to breathe the cleansed air. Its greater fineness
and purity are visible to the eye, and we would
fain stay out long and late, that the gales may
sigh through us, too, as through the leafless
trees, and fit us for the winter, — as if we hoped
so to borrow some pure and steadfast virtue, i

which will stead us in all seasons.

A WINTER WALK 205

There is a dumbering subterranean fire in na-
ture which never goes out, and which no cold can
chill. It finally melts the great snow, and in
January or July is only buried under a thicker
or thinner covering. In the coldest day it flows
somewhere, and the snow melts around every'
tree. This field of winter rye, which sprouted
late in the fall, and now speedily dissolves the
snow, is where the fire is very thinly covered.
We feel warmed by it. In the winter, warmth
stands for all virtue, and we resort in thought to
a trickling rill, with its bare stones shining in
the sun, and to warm springs in the woods, with
as much ' eagerness as rabbits and robins. The
steam which rises from swamps and pools is as
dear and domestic as that of our own kettle.
What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a
winter's day, when the meadow mice come out
by the wall-sides, and the chickadee lisps in the
defiles of the wood? The warmth comes directly
from the sun, and is not radiated from the earth,
as in summer; and when we feel his beams on
our backs as we are treading some snowy dell,
we are grateful as for a special kindness, and
bless the sun which has followed us into that by-
^lace.

This subterranean fire has its altar in each
man's breast ; for in the coldest day, and on the
bleakest hill, the traveler cherishes a warmer

206 A WINTER WALK

fire within the folds of his cloak than is kindled
on any hearth. A healthy man, indeed, is the
complement of the seasons, and in winter, sum-
mer is in his heart. There is the south. Thither
have aU birds and insects migrated, and around
the warm springs in his breast are gathered the
robin and the lark.

At length, having reached the edge of the
woods, and shut out the gadding town, we enter
within their covert as we go under the roof of a
cottage, and cross its threshold, all ceiled and
banked up with snow. They are glad and warm
still, and as genial and cheery in winter as in
siunmer. As we stand in the midst of the pines
in the flickering and checkered light which
straggles but little way into their maze, we won-
der if the towns have ever heard their simple
story. - It seems to us that no traveler has ever
explored them, and notwithstanding the wonders
which science is elsewhere revealing every day,
who would not like to hear their annals? Our
humble villages in the plain are their contribu-
tion. We borrow from the forest the boards
which shelter sAd the sticks which warm us.
How important is their evergreen to the winter,
that portion of the summer which does not fade,
the permanent year, the unwithered grass. Thus
simply, and with little expense of altitude, is the
surface of the earth diversified. What would

A WINTER WALK 207

human life be without forests, tho se natural
qitigsZ From the tops of mountains they appear
like smooth-shaven lawns, yet whither shall we
walk but in this taller grass?

In this glade covered with bushes of a year's
growth, see how the silvery dust lies on every
seared leaf and twig, deposited in such infinite
and luxurious forms as by their very variety
atone for the absence of color. Observe the
tiny tracks of mice around every stem, and the
triangular tracks of the rabbit. A pure elas-
tic heaven hangs over all, as if the impurities
of the summer sky, refined and shrunk by the
chaste winter's cold, had been winnowed from
the heavens upon the earth.

Nature conf oun&s her summer distinctions at
this season. The heavens seem to be nearer the
earth. The elements are less reserved and dis-
tinct. Water turns to ice, rain to snow. The
day is but a Scandinavian night. , The winter is
an arctic summer.
^ How much more living is the life that is in

nature, the furred life which still survives the
stinging nights, and, from amidst fields and
woods covered with frost and snow, sees the sun
rise.

*' The f oodless wilds
f Pour forUi their brown inhabitants."

The gray squirrel and rabbit are brisk and play-

208 A WINTER WALK

ful in the remote glens, even on the morning of
the cold Friday. Here is our Lapland and
Labrador, and for our Esquimaux and Knisten-
aux, Dog-ribbed Indians, Novazemblaites, and
Spitzbergeners, are there not the ice-cutter and
wood-chopper, the fox, musk-rat, and mink?

Still, in the midst of the arctic day, we may
trace the summer to its retreats, and sympathize
with some contemporary life. Stretched over
the brooks, in the midst of the frost-bound
meadows, we may observe the submarine cot-
tages of the caddice-worms, the larvse of the
Plicipennes; their small cylindrical cases built
around themselves, composed of flags, sticks,
grass, and withered leaves, shells, and pebbles,
in form and color like the wrecks which strew
the bottom, — now drifting along over the pebbly
bottom, now whirling in tiny eddies and dashing
down steep falls, or sweeping rapidly along with
the current, or else swaying to and fro at the
end of some grass - blade or root. Anon they
will leave their sunken habitations, and, crawling
up the stems of plants, or to the surface, like
gnats, as perfect insects henceforth, flutter over
the surface of the water, or sacrifice their short
lives in the flame of our candles at evening.
Down yonder little glen the shrubs are drooping
under their burden, and the red alder-berries
contrast with the white ground. Here are the

A WINTER WALK 209

marks of a myriad feet which have already been
abroad. The sun rises as proudly over such
a glen as over the valley of the Seine or the
Tiber, and it seems the residence of a pure and
self-subsistent valor, such as they never wit-
nessed; which never knew defeat nor fear. Here
reign the simplicity and purity of a primitive
age, and a health and hope far remote from
towns and cities. Standing quite alone, far in
the forest, while the wind is shaking down snow
from the trees, and leaving the only human
tracks behind us, we find our reflections of a
richer variety than the life of cities. The chick-
adee and nuthatch are more inspiring society
than statesmen and philosophers, and we shall
return to these last as to more vulgar compan-
ions. In this lonely glen, with its brook drain-
ing the slopes, its creased ice and crystals of all
hues, where the spruces and hemlocks stand up
on either side, and the rush and sere wild oats
in the rivulet itself, our lives are more serene
and worthy to contemplate.

As the day advances, the heat of the sun is
reflected by the hillsides, and we hear a faint
but sweet music, where flows the rill released
from its fetters, and the icicles are melting on
the trees; and the nuthatch and partridge are
heard and seen. The south wind melts the snow
at noon, and the bare ground appears with its

210 A WINTER WALK

withered grass and leaves, and we are invigor-
ated by the perfume which exhales from it, as
by the scent of strong meats.

Let us go into this deserted woodman's hut,
and see how he has passed the long winter nights
and the short and stormy days. For here man
has lived under this south hiUside, and it seems
a civilized and public spot. We. have such as-
sociations as when the traveler stands by the
ruins of Palmyra or Hecatompolis. Singing
birds and flowers perchance have begun to ap-
pear here, for flowers as well as weeds follow
in the footsteps of man. These hemlocks whis-
pered over his head, these hickory logs were his
fuel, and these pitch-pine roots kindled his fire ;
yonder fuming rill in the hollow, whose thin and
airy vapor still ascends as busily as ever, though
he is far off now, was his well. These hemlock
boughs, and the straw upon this raised platform,
were his bed, and this broken dish held his
drink. But he has not been here this season,
for the phcebes built their nest upon this shelf
last summer. I find some embers left as if he
had but just gone out, where he baked his pot
of beans ; and while at evening he smoked his
pipe, whose stemless bowl lies in the ashes,
chatted with his only companion, if perchance
he had any, about the depth of the snow on the
morrow, already falling fast and thick without.

A WINTER WALK 211

or disputed whether the last sound was the
screech of an owl, or the creak of a bough, or
imagination only; and through his broad chim-
ney throat, in the late winter evening, ere he
stretched himself upon the straw, he looked up
to learn the progress of the storm, and, seeing
the bright stars of Cassiopeia's chair shining
brightly down upon him, fell contentedly asleep.

See how many traces from which we may
learn the chopper's history. From this stump
we may guess the sharpness of his ax, and from
the slope of the stroke, on which side he stood,
and whether he cut down the tree without going
round it or changing hands ; and, from the flex-
ure of the splinters, we may know which way it
fell. This one chip contains inscribed on it the
whole history of the wood-chopper and of the
world. On this scrap of paper, which held his
sugar or salt, perchance, or was the wadding of
his gun, sitting on a log in the forest, with what
interest we read the tattle of cities, of those
larger huts, empty and to let, like this, in High
Streets and Broadways. The eaves are drip-
ping on the south side of this simple roof, while
the titmouse lisps in the pine and the genial
warmth of the sun around the door is some-
what kind and human.

After two seasons, this rude dwelling does not
deform the scene. Already the birds resort to

212 A WINTER WALK

it, to build their nests, and you may track to its
door the feet of many quadrupeds. Thus, for a
long time, nature overlooks the encroachment
and profanity of man. The wood still cheerfully
and unsuspiciously echoes the strokes of the axe
that fells it, and while they are few and seldom,
they enhance its wildness, and all the elements
strive to naturalize the sound.

Now our path begins to ascend gradually to
the top of this high hill, from whose precipitous
south side we can look over the broad country
of forest and field and river, to the distant
snowy mountains. See yonder thin column of
smoke curling up through the woods from some
invisible farmhouse; the standard raised over
some rural homestead. There must be a warmer
and more genial spot there below, as where we
detect the vapor from a spring forming a cloud
above the trees. What fine relations are estab-
lished between the traveler who discovers this
airy column from some eminence in the forest
and him who sits below. Up goes the smoke as
silently and naturally as the vapor exhales from
the leaves, and as busyv disposing itself in
wreaths as the housewife on th^ hearth below.
It is a hieroglyphic of man's life, and suggests
more intimate and important things than the boil-
ing of a pot. Where its fine column rises above
the forest, like an ensign, some human life has

A WINTER WALK 213

planted itself, — and such is the beginning of
Borne, the establishment of the arts, and the
foundation of empires, whether on the prairies of
America or the steppes of Asia.

And now we descend again, to the brink of
this woodland lake, which lies in a hollow of the
hills, as if it were their expressed juice, and
that of the leaves which are annually steeped in
it. Without outlet or inlet to the eye, it has still
its history, in the lapse of its waves, in the
rounded pebbles on its shore, and in the pines
which grow down to its brink. It has not been
idle, though sedentary, but, like Abu Musa,
teaches that ^^ sitting still at home is the heavenly
way; the going out is the way of the world."
Yet in its evaporation it travels as far as any.
In summer it is the earth's liquid eye ; a mirror
in the breast of nature. The sins of the wood
are washed out in it. See how the woods form
an amphitheatre about it, and it is an arena for
all the genialness of nature. All trees direct the
traveler to its brink, all paths seek it out, birds
fly to it, quadrupeds flee to it, and the very
ground inclines toward it. It is nature's saloon,
where she has sat down to her toilet. Consider
her silent economy and tidiness ; how .the sun
comes with his evaporation to sweep the dust
from its surface each morning, and a fresh sur-
face is constantly welling up; and annually,

214 A WINTER WALK

after whatever impurities have accumulated
herein, its liquid transparency appears again in
the spring. In summer a hushed music seems
to sweep across its surface. But now a plain
sheet of snow conceals it from our eyes, except
where the wind has swept the ice bare, and the
sere leaves are gliding from side to side, tacking
and veering on their tiny voyages. Here^is one
just keeled up against a pebble on shore, a diy
beech - leaf, rocking still, as if it would start
again. A skillful engineer, methinks, might
project its course since it fell from the parent
stem. Here are all the elements for such a cal-
culation. Its present position, the direction of
the wind, the level of the pond, and how much
more is given. In its scarred edges and veins is
its log rolled up.

We fancy ourselves in the interior of a larger
house. The surface of the pond is our deal
table or sanded floor, and the woods rise
abruptly from its edge, like the walls of a cot-
tage. The lines set to catch pickerel through
the ice look like a larger culinary preparation,
and the men stand about on the white ground
like pieces of forest furniture. The actions of
these men, at the distance of half a mile over
the ice and snow, impress us as when we read the
exploits of Alexander in history. They seem
not unworthy of the scenery, and as momentous
as the conquest of kingdoms.

A WINTER WALK

Again we have wandered through the arches
of the wood, until from its skirts we hear the
distant booming of ice from yonder bay of the
river, as if it were moved by some other and
subtler tide than oceans know. To me it has a
strange sound of home, thrilling as the voice of
one's distant and noble kindred. A mild sum-
mer sun shines over forest and lake, and though
there is but one green leaf for many rods, yet
nature ^oys a serene health. Every soimd is
fraught with the same mysterious assurance of
health, as well now the creaking of the boughs
in January, as the soft sough of the wind in
July.

When Winter fringes eyery bongh
With his fantastic wreath,
\ And pnts the seal of silence now

Upon the leaves beneath ;

When every stream in its penthonse

Goes gargling on its way,
And in his gallery the mouse

Nibbleth the meadow hay ;

Methinks the summer stiU is nigh,

And lurketh underneath,
As that same meadow-mouse doth He

Snug in that last year's heath.

And if perchance the chickadee

Lisp a faint note anon.
The snow is summer's canopy,

Which she herself put on.

(

216 A WINTER WALK

Fair blossoms deck tiie cheerful trees,

And dazzUni^ fruits depend,
The north wind sighs a summer breeze,

The nipping frosts to fend,

Bringing glad tidings unto me.

The while I stand all ear.
Of a serene eternity,

Which need not winter fear.

Out on the mlent pond straightway

The restless ice doth crack,
And pond sprites merry gambols play

Amid the deafening rack.

Eager I hasten to the vale.

As if I heard brave news.
How nature held high festiyal,

Which it were hard to lose.

I gambol with my neighbor ice,

And sympathizing quake,
As each new crack darts in a trice

Across the gladsome lake.

One with the cricket in the g^und,

And fagot on the hearth.
Resounds the rare domestic sound

Along the forest path.

Before night we will take a journey on skates
along the course of this meandering river, as
full of novelty to one who sits by the cottage
fire all the winter's day, as if it were over the
polar ice, with Captain Parry or Franklin ; fol-
lowing the winding of the stream, now flowing

A. WINTER WALK 217

amid hills, now spreading out into fair meadows,
and forming a myriad coves and bays where the
pine and hemlock overarch. The river flows in
the rear of the towns, and we see all things from
a new and wilder side. The fields and gardens
come down to it with a frankness, and freedom
from pretension^, which they do not wear on the
highway. It is the outside and edge of the
earth. Our eyes are not offended by violent
contrasts. The last rail of the farmer's fence is
some swaying willow bough, which still pre-
serves its freshness, and here at length all fences
stop, and we no longer cross any road. We
may go far up within the country now by the
most retired and level road, never climbing a
hill, but by broad levels ascending to the upland
meadows. It is a beautiful illustration of the
law of obedience, the flow of a river; the path
for a sick man, a highway down which an acorn
cup may float secure with its freight. Its slight
occasional falls, whose precipices would not
diversify the landscape, are celebrated by mist
and spray, and attract the traveler from far and
near. From the remote interior, its current
conducts him by broad and easy steps, or by one
gentler inclined plane, to the sea. Thus by an
early and constant yielding to the inequalities of
the ground it secures itself the easiest passage.
No domain of nature is quite closed to man at

218 A WINTER WALK

all times, and now we draw near to the empire of
the fishes. Our feet glide swiftly over iinf athomed
depths, where in sunmier our line tempted the
pout and perch, and where the stately pickerel
lurked in the long corridors formed by the bul-
rushes. The deep, impenetrable marsh, where
the heron waded, and bittern squatted, is made
pervious to our swift shoes, as if a thousand rail-
roads had been made into it. With one impulse
we are carried to the cabin of the musk-rat,
that earliest settler, and see him dart away under
the transparent ice, like a furred fish, to his hole
in the bank; and we glide rapidly over meadows
where lately ** the mower whet his scythe,"
through beds of frozen cranberries mixed with
meadow grass. We skate near to where the
blackbird, the pewee, and the kingbird hung
their nests over the water, and the hornets
builded from the maple in the swamp. How
many gay warblers, following the sun, have radi-
ated from this nest of silver-birch and thistle-
down. On the swamp's outer edge was hung
the supermarine village, where no foot pene-
trated. In this hoUow tree the wood-duck reared
her brood, and slid away each day to forage in
yonder fen.

In winter, nature is a cabinet of curiosities,
full of dried specimens, in their natural order
and position. The meadows and forests are a

A WINTER WALK 219

horttis siccus. The leaves and grasses stand
perfectly pressed by the air without screw or
gum, and the birds' nests are not hung on an
artificial twig, but where they builded them.
We go about dry shod to inspect the summer's
wprk in the rank swamp, and see what a growth
have got the alders, tha willows, and the maples ;
testifying to how -many warm suns, and fertUiz-
ing dews and showers. See what strides their
boughs took in the luxuriant summer, — and
anon these dormant buds will carry them on-
ward and upward another span into the heavens.
Occasionally we wade through fields of snow,
under whose depths the river is lost for many
rods, to appear again to the right or left, where
we least expected ; still holding on its way un-
deroeath, with a faint, stertorous, rumbling
SQund, as if, like the bear and marmot, it too
had hibernated, and we had followed its faint
summer-trail to where it earthed itself in snow
and ice. At first we should have thought that
rivers would be empty and dry in midwinter,
or else frozen solid till the spring thawed them;
but their volume is not diminished even, for
only a superficial cold bridges their surfaces.
The thousand springs which feed the lakes and
streams are flowing still. The issues of a few
surface springs only are closed, and they go to
swell the deep reservoirs. Nature's wells are

220 A WINTER WALK

below the frost. The summer brooks are not
filled with snow-water, nor does the mower
quench his thirst with that alone. The streams
are swollen when the snow melts in the spring,
because nature's work has been delayed, the
water being turned into ice and snow, whose
particles are less smooth and round, and do not
find their level so soon.

Far over the ice, between the hemlock woods
and snow-clad hills, stands the pickerel fisher,
his lines set in some retired cove, like a Finlan-
der, with his arms thrust into the pouches of his
dreadnought; with dull, snowy, fishy thoughts,
himself a finless fish, separated a few inches
from his race ; dumb, erect, and made to be en-
veloped in clouds and snows, like the pines on
shore. In these wild scenes, men stand about
in the scenery, or move deliberately and heav-
ily, having sacrificed the sprightliness and vi-
vacity of towns to the dumb sobriety of nature.
He does not make the scenery less wild, more
than the jays and musk-rats, but stands there as
a part of it, as the natives are represented in the
voyages of early navigators, at Nootka Sound,
and on the Northwest coast, with their furs about
them, before they were tempted to loquacity by
a scrap of iron. He belongs to the natural
family of man, and is planted deeper in nature
and has more root than the inhabitants of towns*

A WINTER WALK 221

Go to him, ask what luck, and you will learn
that he too is a worshiper of the unseen. Hear
with what sincere deference and waving gesture
in his tone he speaks of the lake pickerel,
which he has never seen, his primitive and ideal
race of pickerel. He is connected with the
shore still, as by a fish-line, and yet remembers
the season when he took fish through the ice on
the pond, while the peas were up in his garden
at home.

But now, while we have loitered, the clouds
have gathered again, and a few straggling snow-
flakes are beginning to descend. Faster and
faster they fall, shutting out the distant objects
from sight. The snow falls on every wood and
field, and no crevice is forgotten ; by the river
and the pond, on the hill and in the valley.
Quadrupeds are confined to their coverts and
the birds sit upon their perches this peaceful
hour. There is not so much sound as in fair
weather, but silently and gradually every slope,
and the gray walls and fences, and the polished
ice, and the sere leaves, which were not buried
before, are concealed, and the tracks of men and
beasts are lost. With so little eflPort does nature
reassert her rule and blot out the traces of men.
Hear how Homer has described the same : " The
snow-flakes fall thick and fast on a winter's
day. The winds are lulled, and the snow falls

222 A WINTER WALK

incessant, covering the tops of the mountains,
and the hills, and the plains where the lotus-tree
grows, and the cultivated fields, and they are
falling by the inlets and shores of the foaming
sea, but are silently dissolved by the waves/'
The snow levels all things, and infolds them
deeper in the bosom of nature, as, in the slow
summer, vegetation creeps up to the entablature
of the temple, and the turrets of the castle, and
helps her to prevail over art.

The surly night - wind rustles through the
wood, and warns us to retrace our steps, while
the sun goes down behind the thickening storm,
and birds seek their roosts, and cattle their
stalls.

'* Drooping the laborer ox
Stands coyered o'er with snow, and now demands
The fruit of aU his toil."

•

Though winter is represented in the almanac
as an old man, facing the wind and sleet, and
drawing his cloak about him, we rather think
of him as a merry wood-chopper, and warm-
blooded youth, as blithe as summer. The un-
explored grandeur of the storm keeps up the
spirits of the traveler. It does not trifle with
us, but has a sweet earnestness. In winter we
lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm
and cheery, like cottages under drifts, whose
windows and doors are half concealed, but from

A WINTER WALK 223

whose chimneys the smoke cheerfully ascends.
The imprisoning drifts increase the sense of
comfort which the house affords, and in the
coldest days we are content to sit over the hearth
and see the shy through the chinmey top, enjoy-
ing the quiet and serene life that may be had in
a warm comer by the chinmey side, or feeling
our pulse by listening to the low of cattle in the
street, or the sound of the flail in distant bams
all the long afternoon. No doubt a skillful physi-
cian could determine our health by observing
how these simple and natural sounds affected us.
We enjoy now, not an oriental, but a boreal
leisure, around warm stoves and fireplaces, and
watch the shadow of motes in the sunbeams.

Sometimes our fate grows too homely and
familiarly serious ever to be cruel. Consider
how for three months the human destiny is
wrapped in furs. The good Hebrew Revelation
takes no cognizance of all this cheerfiil snow.
Is there no religion for the temperate and frigid
zones ? We know of no scripture which records
the pure benignity of the gods on a New England
winter night. Their praises have never been
sung, only their wrath deprecated. The best
scripture, after all, records but a meagre faith.
Its saints live reserved and austere. Let a
brave, devout man spend the year in the woods
of Maine or Labrador, and see if the Hebrew

224 A WINTER WALK

Scriptures speak adequately to his condition and
experience, from the setting in of winter to the
breaking up of the ice.

Now conunences the long winter evening
around the farmer's hearth, when the thoughts
of the indwellers travel far abroad, and men are
by nature and necessity charitable and liberal
to all creatures. Now is the happy resistance to
cold, when the farmer reaps his reward, and
thinks of his preparedness for winter, and,
through the glittering panes, sees with equa-
nimity "the mansion of the northern bear," for
now the storm is over, —

*^ The full ethereal round,
lufiuite worlds disclosing to the view,
Shines out intensely keen ; and all one cope
Of starry glitter glows from pole to pole.'*

THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES i

Eyeby man is entitled to come to Cattleshow,
even a transcendentalist; and for my part I am
more interested in the men than in the cattle. I
wish to see once more those old familiar faces,
whose names I do not know, which for me repre-
sent the Middlesex country, and come as near
being indigenous to the soil as a white man can ;
the men who are not above their business, whose
coats are not too black, whose shoes do not shine
very much, who never wear gloves to conceal
their hands. It is true, there are some queer
specimens of humanity attracted to our festival,
but all are welcome. I am pretty sure to meet
once more that weak-minded and whimsical fel-
low, generally weak-bodied too, Who prefers a
crooked stick for a cane ; perfectly useless, you
would say, only bizarre^ fit for a cabinet, like a
petrified snake. A ram's horn would be as con-
venient, and is yet more curiously twisted. He
brings that much indulged bit of the country
with him, from some town's end or other, and

^ An Address read to the Middlesex Agrionltoral Society in
GoDOord, September, 1860.

226 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES

introduces it to Concord groves, as if he had
promised it so much sometime. So some, it
seems to me, elect their rulers for their crooked-
ness. But I think that a straight stick makes
the best cane, and an upright man the best ruler.
Or why choose a man to do plain work who is
distinguished for his oddity? However, I do
not know but you will think that they have com-
mitted this mistake who invited me to speak to
you to-day.

In my capacity of surveyor, I have often
talked with some of you, my employers, at your
dinner - tables, after having gone round and
round and behind your farming, and ascertained
exactly what its limits were. Moreover, taking
a surveyor's and a naturalist's liberty, I have
been in the habit of going across your lots much
oftener than is usual, as many of you, perhaps
to your sorrow, are aware. Yet many of you,
to my relief, have seemed not to be aware of it ;
and, when I came across you in some out-of-the-
way nook of your farms, have inquired, with an
air of surprise, if I were not lost, since you had
never seen me in that part of the town or county
before; when, if the truth were known, and it
had not been for betraying my secret, I might
with more propriety have inquired if you were
not lost, since I had never seen you there before.
I have several times shown the proprietor the
shortest way out of his wood-lot.

THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 227

Therefore, it would seem that 1 have some
title to speak to you to-day; and considering
what that title is, and the occasion that has
called us together, I need offer no apology if I

I invite your attention, for the few moments that

^ are allotted me, to a purely scientific subject.

I At those dinner - tables referred to, I have

often been asked, As many of you have been, if

I I could tell how it happened, that when a pine

wood was cut down an oak one commonly sprang
up, and vice versa. To which I have answered,
and now answer, that I can tell, — that it is no
mystery to me. As I am not aware that this
has been clearly shown by any one, I shall lay
the more stress on this point. Let me lead you
back into your wood-lots again.

When, hereabouts, a single forest tree or a
forest springs up naturally where none of its
kind grew before, I do not hesitate to say,
though in some quarters still it may sound para-
doxical, that it came from a seed. Of the vari-
ous ways by which trees are hnown to be propa-
gated, — by transplanting, cuttings, and the
like, — this is the only supposable one under
these circumstances. No such tree has ever
been known to spring from anything else. If
any one asserts that it sprang from something
else, or from nothing, the burden of proof lies
with him.

228 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES

It remains, then, only to show how the seed
is transported from where it grows to where it
is planted. This is done chiefly by the agency
of the wind, water, and animals. The lighter
seeds, as those of pines and maples, are trans-
ported chiefly by wind and water; the heavier,
as acorns and nuts, by animals.

In all the pines, a very thin membrane, in
appearance much like an insect's wing, grows
over and around the seed, and independent of it,
while the latter is being developed within its
base. Indeed this is often perfectly developed,
though the seed is abortive ; nature being, you
would say, more sure to provide the means of
transporting the seed, than to provide the seed
to be transported. In other words, a beautiful
thin sack is woven around the seed, with a
handle to it such as the wind can take hold of,
and it is then committed to the wind, expressly
that it may transport the seed and extend the
range of the species ; and this it does, as effec-
tually as when seeds are sent by mail in a differ-
ent kind of sack from the patent-office. There
is a patent-office at the seat of government of the
universe, whose managers are as much inter-
ested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at
Washington can be, and their operations are in-
finitely more extensive and regular.

There is then no necessity for supposing that

THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 229

the pines have sprang up from nothing, and I
am aware that I am not at all peculiar in assert-
ing that they come from seeds, though the mode
of their propagation hy nature has been but little
attended to. They are very extensively raised
from the seed in Europe, and are beginning to
be here.

When you cut down an oak wood, a pine wood
will not at once spring up there unless there are,
or have been quite recently, seed-bearing pines
near enough for the seeds to be blown from
them. But, adjacent to a forest of pines, if yon
prevent other crops from growing there, you will
surely have an extension of your pine forest, pro-
vided the soil is suitable.

As for the heavy seeds and nuts which are not
furnished with wings, the notion is still a very

common one that, when the trees which bear
these spring up where none of their kind were
noticed before, they have come from seeds or
other principles spontaneously generated there
in an unusual manner, or which have lain dor-
mant in the soil for centuries, or perhaps been
called into activity by the heat of a burning. I
do not believe these assertions, and I will state
some of the ways in which, according to my ob-
servation, such forests are planted and raised.

Every one of these seeds, too, will be found to
be winged or legged in another fashion. Surely

230 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES

it is not wonderful that cherry-trees of all kinds
are widely dispersed, since their fruit is well
known to be the favorite food of various birds.
Many kinds are called bird-cherries, and they
appropriate many more kinds, which are not so
called. Eating cherries is a bird-like employ-
ment, and unless we disperse the seeds occasion-
ally, as they do, I shall think that the birds
have the best right to them. See how artfully
the seed of a cherry is placed in order that a
bird may be compelled to transport it — in the
very midst of a tempting pericarp, so that the
creature that would devour this must commonly
take the stone also into its mouth or bill. If
you ever ate a cherry, and did not make two
bites of it, you must have perceived it — right
in the centre of the luscious morsel, a large
earthy residuum left on the tongue. We thus
take into our mouths cherry stones as big as
peas, a dozen at once, for Nature can persuade
us to do almost anything when she would com-
pass her ends. Some wild men and children in-
stinctively swallow these, as the birds do when
in a hurry, it being the shortest way to get rid
of them. Thus, though these seeds are not pro-
vided with vegetable wings. Nature has impelled
the thrush tribe to take them into their bills and
fly away with them ; and they are winged in an-
other sense, and more effectually than the seeds

THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 231

of pines, for these are carried even against the
wind. The consequence is, that cherry-trees
grow not only here but there. The same is true
of a great many other seeds.

But to come to the observation which sug-
gested these remarks. As I have said, 1 sus-
pect that I can throw some light on the fact,
that when hereabouts a dense pine wood is cut
down, oaks and other hard woods may at once
take its place. I have got only to show that
the acorns and nuts, provided they are grown in
the neighborhood, are regularly planted in such
woods ; for I assert that if an oak-tree has not
grown within ten miles, and man has not car-
ried acorns thither, then an oak wood will not
spring up at once^ when a pine wood is cut down.

Apparently, there were only pines there before.
They are cut off, and after a year or two you
see oaks and other hard woods springing up
there, with scarcely a pine amid them, and the
wonder commonly is, how the seed could have
lain in the ground so long without decaying.
But the truth is, that it has not lain in the
ground so long, but is regularly planted each
year by various quadrupeds and birds.

In this neighborhood, where oak and pines
are about equally dispersed, if you look through
the thickest pine wood, even the seemingly un-
mixed pitch-pine ones, you will commonly detect

232 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES

many little oaks, birches, and other hard woods,
sprung from seeds carried into the thicket by
squirrels and other animals, and also blown
thither, but which are overshadowed and choked
by the pines. The denser the evergreen wood,
the more likely it is to be well planted with these
seeds, because the planters incline to resort with
their forage to the closest covert. They also
carry it into birch and other woods. This
planting is carried on annually, and the old-
est seedlings annually die; but when the pines
are cleared off, the oaks, having got just the
start they want, and now secured favorable con-
ditions, immediately spring up to trees.

The shade of a dense pine wood is more un-
favorable to the springing up of pines of the
same species than of oaks within it, though the
former may come up abundantly when the pines
are cut, if there chance to be sound seed in the
ground.

But when you cut off a lot of hard wood, very
often the little pines mixed with it have a similar
start, for the squirrels have carried off the nuts
to the pines, and not to the more open wood,
and they commonly make pretty clean work of
it; and moreover, if the wood was old, the
sprouts will be feeble or entirely fail; to say
nothing about the soil being, in a measure, ex-
hausted for this kind of crop.

THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 233

If a pine wood is surrounded by a white oak
one chiefly, white oaks may be expected to suc-
ceed when the pines are cut. If it is surrounded
instead by an edging of shrub-oaks, then you
will probably have a dense shrub-oak thicket.

I have no time to go into details, but will
say, in a word, that while the wind is conveying
the seeds of pines into hard woods and open
lands, the squirrels and other animals are con-
veying the seeds of oaks and walnuts into the
pine woods, and thus a rotation of crops is kept
up.

I affirmed this confidently many years ago,
and an occasional examination of dense pine
woods confirmed me in my opinion. It has long
been known to observers that squirrels bury nuts
in the ground, but I am not aware that any one
has thus accounted for the regular succession of
forests.

On the 24th of September, in 1857, as I was
paddling down the Assabet, in this town, I saw
a red squirrel run along the bank under some
herbage, with something large in its mouth. It
stopped near the foot of a hemlock, within a
couple of rods of me, and, hastily pawing a hole
with its forefeet, dropped its booty into it, cov-
ered it up, and retreated part way up the trunk
of the tree. As I approached the shore to ex-
amine the deposit, the squirrel, descending part

234 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES

way, betrayed no little anxiety about its treasure,
and made two or three motions to recover it
before it finally retreated. Digging there, I
found two green pig-nuts joined together, with
the thick husks on, buried about an inch and a
half under the reddish soil of decayed hemlock
leaves, — just the right depth to plant it. In
short, this squirrel was then engaged in accom-
plishing two objects, to wit, laying up a store of
winter food for itself, and planting a hickory
wood for all creation. If the squirrel was killed,
or neglected its deposit, a hickory would spring
up. The nearest hickory-tree was twenty rods
distant. These nuts were there still just four-
teen days later, but were gone when I looked
again, November 21st, or six weeks later still.

I have since examined more carefully several
dense woods, which are said to be, and are ap-
parently, exclusively "Jijine, and always with the
same result. For instance, I walked the same
day to a small, but very dense and handsome
white-pine grove, about fifteen rods square, in
the east part of this town. The trees are large
for Cdncord, being from ten to twenty inches in
diameter, and as exclusively pine as any wood
that I know. Indeed, I selected this wood
because I thought it the least likely to contain
anything else. It stands on an open plain or
pasture, except that it adjoins another small

THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 236

pine wood, which has a few little oaks in it, on
the southeast side. On every other side, it was
at least thirty rods from the nearest woods.
Standing on the edge of this grove and looking
through it, for it is quite level and free from
underwood, for the most part bare, red-carpeted
ground, you would have said that there was not
a hard-wood tree in it, young or old. But on
looking carefully along over its floor I discovered,
though it was not till my eye had got used to
the search, that, alternating with thin ferns, and
small blueberry bushes, there was, not merely
here and there, but as often as every five feet
and with a degree of regularity, a little oak, from
three to twelve inches high, and in one place I
found a green acorn dropped by the base of a
pine.

I confess I was surprised to find my theory so
perfectly proved in this case. One of the prin-
cipal agents in this planting, the red squirrels,
were all the while curiously inspecting me, while
I was inspecting their plantation. Some of the
little oaks had been browsed by cows, which re-
sorted to this wood for shade.

After seven or eight years, the hard woods
evidently find such a locality unfavorable to
their growth, the pines being allowed to stand.
As an evidence of this, I observed a diseased
red-maple twenty-five feet long, which had been

236 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES

recently pi*ostrated, though it was still covered
with green leaves, the only maple in any posi-
tion in the wood.

But although these oaks almost invariably die
if the pines are not cut down, it is probable that
they do better for a few years imder their shel-
ter than they would anywhere else.

The very extensive and thorough experiments
of the English have at length led them to adopt
a method of raising oaks almost precisely like
this, which somewhat earlier had been adopted
by nature and her squirrels here ; they have sim-
ply rediscovered the value of pines as nurses for
oaks. The English experimenters seem, early and
generally, to have found out the importance of
using trees of some kind as nurse-plants for the
young oaks. I quote from Loudon what he
describes as '^the ultimatum on the subject of
planting and sheltering oaks," — "an abstract
of the practice adopted by the government offi-
cers in the national forests " of England, pre-
pared by Alexander Milne.

At first some oaks had been planted by them-
selves, and others mixed with Scotch pines;
"but in all cases," says Mr. Milne, "where oaks
were planted actually among the pines and sur-
rounded by them [though the soil might be in-
ferior], the oaks were found to be much the
best." " For several years past, the plan pur-

THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 2S7

sued has been to plant the inelosures with Scotch
pines only [a tree very similar to our pitch-
pine], and when the pines have got to the height
of five or six feet, then to put in good strong
oak plants of about four or five years' growth
ajnong the pines, — not cutting away any pines
at first, unless they happen to be so strong and
thick as to overshadow the oaks. In about two
years it becomes necessary to shred the branches
of the pines, to give light and air to the oaks,
and in about two or three more years to begin
gradually to remove the pines altogether, tak-
ing out a certain number each year, so that, at
the end of twenty or twenty-five years, not a
single Scotch pine shall be left; although, for
the first ten or twelve years, the plantation may
have appeared to contain nothing else but pine.
The advantage of this mode of planting has been
found to be that the pines dry and ameliorate
the soil, destroying the coarse grass and brambles
which frequently choke and injure oaks; and
that no mending over is necessary, as scarcely
an oak so planted is found to fail."

Thus much the English planters have discov-
ered by patient experiment, and, for aught I
know, they have taken out a patent for it ; but
they appear not to have discovered that it was
discovered before, and that they are merely
adopting the method of Nature, which she long

238 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES

ago made patent to all. She is all the while
planting the oaks amid the pines without our
knowledge, and at last, instead of government
officers, we send a party of wood-choppers to cut
down the pines, and so rescue an oak forest, at
which we wonder as if it had dropped from the
skies.

As I walk amid hickories, even in August, I
hear the sound of green pig-nuts falling from
time to time, cut off by the chickaree over my
head. In the fall, I notice on the ground, either
within or in the neighborhood of oak woods, on
all sides of the town, stout oak twigs three or
four inches long, bearing half a dozen empty
acorn-cups, which twigs have been gnawed off by
squirrels, on both sides of the nuts, in order to
make them more portable. The jays scream
and the red squirrels scold while you are club-
bing and shaking the chestnut-trees, for they are
there on the same errand, and two of a trade
never agree. I frequently see a red or gray
squirrel cast down a green chestnut-bur, as I am
going through the woods, and I used to think,
sometimes, that they were cast at me. In fact,
they are so busy about it, in the midst of the
chestnut season, that you cannot stand long in
the woods without hearing one fall. A sports-
man told me that he had, the day before, — that
was in the middle of October, — seen a green

THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 239

chestnut-bur dropped on our great river meadow,
fifty rods from the nearest wood, and much
further from the nearest chestnut-tree, and he
could not tell how it came there. Occasionally,
when chestnutting in midwinter, I find thirty or
forty nuts in a pile, left in its gallery, just imder
the leaves, by the common wood-mouse (mu3
leucopus).

But especially, in the winter, the extent to
which this transportation and planting of nuts
is carried on is made apparent by the snow. In
almost every wood, you will see where the red
or gray squirrels have pawed down through the
snow in a hundred places, sometimes two feet
deep, and almost always directly to a nut or a
pine-cone, as directly as if they had started from
it and bored upward, -^-^ which you and I could
not have done. It would be difficult for us to
find one before the snow falls. Commonly, no
doubt, they had deposited them there in the fall.
You wonder if they remember the localities, or
discover them by the scent. The red squirrel
commonly has its winter abode in the earth under
a thicket of evergreens, frequently under a small
clump of evergreens in the midst of a deciduous
wood. If there are any nut-trees, which still
retain their nuts, standing at a distance without
the wood, their paths often lead directly to and
from them. We therefore need not suppose

240 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES

an oak standing here and there in the wood in
order to seed it, but if a few stand within
twenty or thirty rods of it, it is sufficient.

I think that I may venture to say that every
white-pine cone that falls to the earth naturally
in this town, before opening and losing its seeds,
and almost every pitch-pine one that falls at all,
is cut off by a squirrel, and they begin to pluck
them long before they are ripe, so that when the
crop of white-pine cones is a small one, as it
commonly is, they cut off thus almost every one
of these before it fairly ripens. I think, more-
over, that their design, if I may so speak, in
cutting them off green, is, partly, to prevent
their opening and losing their seeds, for these
are the ones for which they dig through the snow,
and the only white-pine cones which contain any-
thing then. I have counted in one heap, within
a diameter of four feet, the cores of 239 pitch-
pine cones which had been cut off and stripped
by the red squirrel the previous winter.

The nuts thus left on the surface, or buried
just beneath it, are placed in the most favorable
circumstances for germinating. I have some-
times wondered how those which merely fell on
the surface of the earth got planted; but, by the
end of December, I find the chestnut of the same
year partially mixed with the mould, as it were,
under the decaying and mouldy leaves, where

THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 241

there is all the moisture and manure they want,
for the nuts fall fast. In a plentiful year, a
large proportion of the nuts are thus covered
loosely an inch deep, and are, of course, some-
what concealed from squirrels. One winter,
when the crop had been abundant, I got, with
the aid of a rake, many quarts of these nuts as
late as the tenth of January, and though some
bought at the store the same day were more than
half of them mouldy, I did not find a single
mouldy one among these which I picked from
under the wet and mouldy leaves, where they
had been anowed on once or twice. Nature
knows how to pack them best. They were still
plump and tender. Apparently, they do not
heat there, though wet. In the spring they
were all sprouting.

Loudon says that ^'when the nut [of the
common walnut of Europe] is to be preserved
through the winter for the purpose of planting
in the following spring, it should be laid in a rot-
heap, as soon as gathered, with the husk on, and
the heap should be turned over frequently in the
course of the winter."

Here, again, he is stealing Nature's '^ thun-
der." How can a poor mortal do otherwise?
for it is she that finds fingers to steal with, and
the treasure to be stolen. In the planting of
the seeds of most trees, the best gardeners do no

242 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES

more than follow Nature, though they may not (

know it. Generally, both large and small ones
are most sure to germinate, and succeed best,
when only beaten into the earth with the back
of a spade, and then covered with leaves or
straw. These results to which planters have
arrived remind us of the experience of Kane and
his companions at the North, who, when learning
to live in that climate, were surprised to find
themselves steadily adopting the customs of the
natives, simply becoming Esquimaux. So, when
we experiment in planting forests, we find our-
selves at last doing as Nature does. Woidd it
not be well to consult with Nature in the outset?
for she is the most extensive and experienced
planter of us all, not excepting the Dukes of
Athol.

In short, they who have not attended particu-
larly to this subject are but little aware to what
an extent quadrupeds and birds are employed,
especially in the fall, in collecting, and so dis-
seminating and planting the seeds of trees. It is
the almost constant employment of the squirrels
at that season, and you rarely meet with one that
has not a nut in its mouth, or is not just going
to get one. One squirrel-hunter of this town
told me that he knew of a walnut-tree which
bore particularly good nuts, but that on going to
gather them on6 fail, he found that he had been

THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 243

anticipated by a family of a dozen red squirrels.
He took out of the tree, which was hollow, one
bushel and three pecks by measurement, with-
out the husks, and they supplied hini and his
family for the winter. It would be easy to mul-
tiply instances of this kind. How commonly in
the fall you see the cheek-pouches of the striped
squirrel distended by a quantity of nuts I This
species gets its scientific name, Tamias^ or the
steward, from its habit of storing up nuts and
other seeds. Look under a nut-tree a month
after the nuts have fallen, and see what proper*
tion of sound nuts to the abortive ones and
sheUs you wiU find ordinarily. They have been
already eaten, or dispersed far and wide. The
ground looks like a platform before a grocery,
where the gossips of the village sit to crack nuts
and less savory jokes. You have come, you
would say, after the feast was over, and are pre-
sented with the shells only.

Occasionally, when threading the woods in the
fall, you will hear a sound as if some one had
broken a twig, and, looking up, see a jay pecking
at an acorn, or you wiU see a flock of them at
once about it, in the top of an oak, and hear
them break them off. They then fly to a suita-
ble limb, and placing the acorn under one foot,
hammer away at it busily, making a sound like
a woodpecker's tapping, looking round from time

244 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES

to time to see if any foe is approaching, and soon
reach the meat, and nibble at it, holding up their
heads to swallow, while they hold the remainder
very firmly with their claws. Nevertheless it
often drops to the ground before the bird has
done with it. I can confirm what William Bar-
tram wrote to Wilson, the ornithologist, that
" The jay is one of the most useful agents in the
economy of nature, for disseminating forest trees
and other nuciferous and hard-seeded vegetables
on which they feed. Their chief employment
during the autumnal season is foraging to supply
their winter stores. In performing this neces-
sary duty they drop abundance of seed in their
flight over fields, hedges, and by fences, where
they alight to deposit them in the post-holes,
etc. It is remarkable what numbers of young
trees rise up in fields and pastures after a wet
winter and spring. These birds alone are
capable, in a few years' time, to replant all
the cleared lands.''

I have noticed that squirrels also frequently
drop their nuts in open land, which will still
further account for the oaks and walnuts which
spring up in pastures, for, depend on it, every
new tree comes from a seed. When I examine
the little oaks, one or two years old, in such
places, I invariably find the empty acorn from
which they sprung.

THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 245

So far from the seed having lain dormant in
the soil since oaks grew there before, as many
believe, it is well known that it is difficult to
preserve the vitality of acorns long enough to
transport them to Europe; and it is recom-
mended in Loudon's "Arboretum," as the safest
course, to sprout them in pots on the voyage.
The same authority states that "very few acorns
of any species will germinate after having been
kept a year," that beechmast "only retains its
vital properties one year," and the black-walnut
"seldom more than six months after it has
ripened." I have frequently found that in No-
vember, almost every acorn left on the ground
had sprouted or decayed. What with frost,
drouth, moisture, and worms, the greater part
are soon destroyed. Yet it is stated by one
botanical writer that "acorns that have lain
for centuries, on being ploughed up, have soon
vegetated."

Mr. George B. Emerson, in his valuable Re-
port on the Trees and Shrubs of this State, says
of the pines: "The tenacity of life of the seeds
is remarkable. They will remain for many
years unchanged in the ground, protected by the
coolness and deep shade of the forest above
them. But when the forest is removed, and the
warmth of the sun admitted, they immediately
vegetate." Since he does not tell us on what

246 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES

observation his remark is founded, I must doubt
its truth. Besides, the experience of nursery-
men makes it the more questionable.

The stories of wheat raised from seed buriexl
with an ancient Egyptian, and of raspberries
raised from seed found in the stomach of a man
in England, who is supposed to have died six-
teen or seventeen hundred years ago, are gener-,
ally discredited, simply because the evidence is
not conclusive.

Several men of science, Dr. Carpenter among
them, have used the statement that beach-pliuns
sprang up in sand which was dug up forty miles
inland in Maine, to prove that the seed had lain
there a very long time, and some have inferred
that the coast has receded so far. But it seems
to me necessary to their argument to show, first,
that beach-plums grow only on a beach. They
are not uncommon here, which is about half that
distance from the shore; and I remember a
dense patch a few miles north of us, twenly-five
miles inland, from which the fruit was annually
carried to market. How much further inland
they grow, I know not. Dr. Charles T. Jackson
speaks of finding "beach-plums" (perhaps they
were this kind) more than one hundred miles
inland in Maine.

It chances that similar objections lie against
all the more notorious instances of the kind oiji
record.

THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 247

Yet I am prepared to believe that some seeds,
especially small ones, may retain their vitality
for centuries under favorable circumstances. In
the spring of 1859, the old Hunt House, so
called, in this town, whose chimney bore the date
1703, was taken down. This stood on land
which belonged to John Winthrop, the first
Governor of Massachusetts, and a part of the
house was evidently much older than the above
date, and belonged to the Winthrop family.
For many years I have ransacked this neigh-
borhood for plants, and I consider myself famil-
iar with its productions. Thinking of the seeds
which are said to be sometimes dug up at an
imusual depth in the earth, and thus to repro-
duce long extinct plants, it occurred to me last
fall that some new or rare plants might have
sprung up in the cellar of this house, which had
been covered from the light so long. Searching
there on the 22d of September, I found, among
other rank weeds, a species of nettle {Urtica
ureiis) which I had not found before ; diU, which
I had not seen growing spontaneously ; the
Jerusalem oak (^Chenopodium hotrys\ which I
had seen wild in but one place; black night-
shade (^Solanum nigrum)^ which is quite rare
hereabouts, and common tobacco, which, though
it was often cultivated here in the last century,
has for fifty years been an unknown plant in this

248 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES

town, and a few months before this not even I
had heard that one man, in the north part of the
town, was cultivating a few plants for his own
use. I have no doubt that some or all of these
plants sprang from seeds which had long been
buried under or about that house, and that that
tobacco is an additional evidence that the plant
was formerly cultivated here. The cellar has
been filled up this year, and four of those plants,
including the tobacco, are now again extinct in
that locality.

It is true, I have shown that the animals con-
sume a great part of the seeds of trees, and so,
at least, effectually prevent their becoming trees ;
but in all these cases, as I have said, the con-
sumer is compelled to be at the same time the
disperser and planter, and this is the tax which
he pays to nature. I think it is Linnaeus who
says that while the swine is rooting for acorns
he is planting acorns.

Though I do not believe that a plant will
spring up where no seed has been, I have gTcat
faith in a seed — a, to me, equally mysterious
origin for it. Convince me that you have a seed
there, and 1 am prepared to expect wonders. I
shall even believe that the millennium is at hand,
and that the reign of justice is about to com-
mence, when the Patent Office, or Government,
begins to distribute, and the people to plant, the
seeds of these things.

THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 249

In the spring of 1857 I planted six seeds
sent to me from the Patent Office, and labeled,
I think, ^' Poitrine jaune jrrodse," large yellow
squash. Two came up, and one bore a squash
which weighed 123 J pounds, the other bore four,
weighing together 186:|^ pounds. Who would
have believed that there was 310 pounds of
poitrine jaune grosse in that comer of my gar-
den? These seeds were the bait I used to catch
it, my ferrets which I sent into its burrow, my
brace of terriers which unearthed it. A little
mysterious hoeing and manuring was all the
abracadabra presto-change that I used, and lo !
true to the label, they found for me 310 pounds
of poitrine jaune grosse there, where it never
was known to be, nor was before. These talis-
men had perchance sprung from America at
first, and returned to it with unabated force.
The big squash took a premium at your fair that
fall, and 1 understood that the man who bought
it, intended to sell the seeds for ten cents a
piece. (Were they not cheap at that?) But I
have more hounds of tiie same breed. I learn
that one which I despatched to a distant town,
true to its instincts, points to the large yellow
squash there, too, where no hound ever found it
before, as its ancestors did here and in France.

Other seeds I have which will find other things
in that comer of my garden, in like fashion.

260 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES

almost any fruit you wish, every year for ages,
until the crop more than fiUs the whole garden.
You have but little more to do than throw up
your cap for entertainment these American
days. Perfect alchemists I keep who can trans-
mute substances without end, and thus the corner
of my garden is an inexhaustible treasure-chest.
Here you can dig, not gold, but the value which
gold merely represents ; and there is no Signer
Blitz about it. Yet farmers' sons will stare by
the hour to see a juggler draw ribbons from his
throat, though he tells them it is all deception.
Surely, men love darkness rather than light.

WALKING

I WISH to speak a word for Nature, for abso- ^
lute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a
freedom and culture merely civil, — to regard
man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of
Nature, rather than a member of society. I
wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may ^
make an emphatic one, for there are enough
champions of civilization : the minister and the
school-committee and every one of you will take
care of that.

I have met with but one or two persons in the
course of my life who understood the art of
Walking, that is, of taking walks, — who had a
genius, so to speak, for sauntering : which word
is beautifully derived "from idle people who
roved about the country, in the Middle Ages,
and asked charity, under pretense of going a la
Sainte Terre^'*'^ to the Holy Land, till the chil-
dren exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte- Terrer^'*^
a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never
go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they
pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; '

252

WALKING

I but they who do go there are saunterers in the
good sense, such as I mean. Some, however,
would derive the word from sans teirre, without
land or a home, which, therefore, in the good
sense, will mean, having no particular home, but
equaUy at home everywhere. For this is the
secret of successful sauntering. He who sits
still in a house all the time may be the greatest
vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good
sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering
river, which is all the while sedulously seeking
the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the
first, which, indeed, is the most probable deriva-
tion. For every walk is a sort of crusade,

I preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go
forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the
hands of the Infidels.

It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders,
even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no
persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our ex-
peditions are but tours, and come round again
at evening to the old hearth-side from which we
set out. Half the walk is but retracing our
steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk,
perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure,
never to return, — prepared to send back our
embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate

f| kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and

• mother, and brother and sister, and wife and

WALKING 263

child and friends, and never see them again, —
if you have paid your debts, and made your will,
and settled all your affairs, and are a free man,
then you are ready for a walk.

To come down to my own experience, my
companion and I, for I sometimes^ have a com-
panion, take pleasure in^ fancying ourselves
knights of a new, or rather an old, order, — not
Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Bitters or Biders,
but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable
class, I trust. The chivalric and heroic spirit
which once belonged to the Rider seems now to
reside in, or perchance to have subsided into,
the Walker, — not the Knight, but Walker,
Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate, outside n
of Church and State and People.

We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts
practiced this noble art ; though, to teU the truth,
at least, if their own assertions are to be re-
ceived, most of my townsmen would fain walk
sometimes, as I do, but they cannot. No wealth
can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and in-
dependence which are the capital in this pro-
fession. It comes only by the grace of God. It
requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to
become a walker. You must be bom into the
family of the Walkers. Amhulator nascitur^
Tion jit. Some of my townsmen, it is true, can
remember and have described to me some walks

264 WALKING

which they took ten years ago, in which they
were so blessed as to lose themselves for half an
hour in the woods ; but I know very well that
they have confined themselves to the highway
ever since, whatever pretensions they may mako
to belong to this select class. No doubt they were
elevated for a moment as by the reminiscence
of a previous state of existence, when even they
were foresters and outlaws.

^ When he came to g^ne wode,
In a mery momyng^f
There he herde the notes small
Of bjrdes mery syngynge.

^ It is f erre gone, sayd Robyn,
That I was last here ;
Me lyste a lytell for to shote
At the donne dere."

I think that I cannot preserve my health and
; spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least,
— and it is commonly more than that, — saun-^
tering through the woods and over the hiUs and
fields, absolutely free from all worldly engage-
ments. You may safely say, A penny for your
thoughts, or a thousand pounds. When some-
times I am reminded that the mechanics and
shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the
forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with
crossed legs, so many of them, — as if the legs
were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk

WALKING 265

upon, — I think that they deserve some credit //
for not having all committed suicide long ago.

I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single
day without acquiring some rust, and when
sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the
eleventh hour or four o'clock in the afternoon,
too late to redeem the day, when the shades of
night were already beginning to be mingled with
the daylight, have felt as if I had committed
some sin to be atoned for, — I confess that I am
astonished at the power of endurance, to say
nothing of the moral insensibility, of my neigh-
bors who confine themselves to shops and offices
the whole day for weeks and months, aye, and
years almost together. I know not what manner
of stuff they are of, — sitting there now at three
o'clock in the afternoon, as if it were three
o'clock in the morning. Bonaparte may talk of
the three-o'clock-in-the-moming courage, but
it is nothing to the courage which can sit down
cheerfully at this hour in the afternoon over
against one's self whom you have known all the
morning, to starve out a garrison to whom you
are bound by such strong ties of sympathy. I
wonder that about this time, or say between four
and five o'clock in the afternoon, too late for the
morning papers and too early for the evening
ones, there is not a general explosion heard up
and down the street, scattering a legion of an-

266 WALKING

tiquated and house-bred notions and whims to
the four winds for an airing, — and so the evil
cure itself.

How womankind, who are confined to the
house still more than men, stand it I do not
know; but I have ground to suspect that most of
them do not startd it at all. When, early in a
sununer afternoon, we have been shaking the
dust of the village from the skirts of our gar-
ments, making haste past those houses with
purely Doric or Gothic fronts, which have such
an air of repose about them, my companion
whispers that probably about these times their
occupants are all gone to bed. Then it is that I 4

appreciate the beauty and the glory of architec-
ture, which itself never turns in, but forever '
stands out and erect, keeping watch over the
slumberers.

No doubt temperament, and, above all, age,
have a good deal to do with it. As a man grows
older, his ability to sit still and follow indoor
occupations increases. He grows vespertinal in
^^ Ms habits as the evening of life approaches, tiU
^\ at last he comes forth only just before sundown,
and gets all the walk that he requires in half an
hour.

But the walking of which I speak has nothing
in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as
the sick take medicine at stated hours, — as the

WALKING

257

swinging of dumb-bells or chairs; but is itself
the enterprise and adventure of the day. If you
would get exercise, go in search of the springs
of life. Think of a man's swinging dumb-bells
for his health, when those springs are bubbling
up in far-off pastures unsought by him 1

Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which
is said to be the only beast which nuninates when
walking. When a traveler asked Wordsworth's
servant to show him her master's study, she
answered, "Here is his library, but his study is
out of doors."

Living much out of doors, in the sun and
wind, will no doubt produce a certain roughness
of character, — will cause a thicker cuticle to
grow over some of the finer qualities of our
nature, as on the face and hands, or as severe
manual labor robs the hands of some of their
delicacy of touch. So staying in the house, on
the other hand, may produce a softness and
smoothness, not to say thinness of skin, accom-
panied by an increased sensibility to certain
impressions. Perhaps we should be more sus-
ceptible to some influences important to our
intellectual and moral growth, if the sun had
shone and the wind blown on us a little less ;
and no doubt it is a nice matter to proportion
rightly the thick and thin skin. But methinks
that is a scurf that will fall off fast enough, —

268 WALKING

that the natural remedy is to be found in the
proportion which the night bears to the day, the
winter to the summer, thought to experience.
There will be so much the more air and sunshine
in our thoughts. The callous palms of the
laborer are conversant with finer tissues of self-
respect and heroism, whose touch thrills the
heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. That
is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and
thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus
of experience.

When we walk, we naturally go to the fields
and woods: what would become of us, if we
walked only in a garden or a mall? Even some
sects of philosophers have felt the necessity of
importing the woods to thfemselves, since they
did not go to the woods. *'They planted groves
and walks of Platanes," where they took subdia-
les amhvlationes in porticos open to the air. Of
course it is of no use to direct our steps to the
woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am
alarmed when it happens that I have walked a
mile into the woods bodily, without getting there
in spirit. In my afternoon walk 1 would fain
forget all my morning occupations and my obli-
gations to society. But it sometimes happens
that I cannot easily shake off the village. The
thought of some work will run in my head and
I am not where my body is, — I am out of my

WALKING 269

senses. In my walks I would fain return to
my senses. Wliat business have I in the woods,
if I am thinking of something out of the woods?
I suspect myself, and cannot help a shudder,
when I find myself so implicated even in what
are called good works, — for this may sometimes
happen.

My vicinity affords many good walks; and
though for so many years I have walked almost
every day, and sometimes for several days to-
gether, I have not yet exhausted them. An
absolutely new prospect is a great happiness,
and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or
three hours' walking will carry me to as strange
a country as I expect ever to see. A single
farm-house which I had not seen before is some-
times as good as the dominions of the King of
Dahomey. There is in fact a sort of harmony -;
discoverable between the capabilities of the land-
scape within a circle of ten miles' radius, or the
limits of an afternoon walk, and the threescore
years and ten of human life. It will never be-
come quite familiar to you. -^

Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so
called, as the building of houses, and the cutting
down of the forest and of all large trees, simply
deform the landscape, and make it more and
more tame and cheap. A people who would
begin by burning the fences and let the forest

260 WALKING

standi I saw the fences half consumed, their
ends lost in the middle of the prairie, and some
worldly miser with a surveyor looking after his
bounds, while heaven had taken place around
him, and he did not see the angels going to and
fro, but was looking for an old post-hole in
the midst of paradise. I looked again, and saw
him standing in the middle of a boggy stygian
fen, surroimded by devils, and he had found his
bounds without a doubt, three little stones,
where a stake had been driven, and looking
nearer, I saw that the Prince of Darkness was

\jhis surveyor.

I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any
number of miles, commencing at my own door,
without going by any house, without crossing a
road except where the fox and the mink do:
first along by the river, and then the brook, and
then the meadow and the woodside. There are
_square miles in my vicinity which have no in-

' habitant. From many a hill I can see civiliza-
tion and the abodes of man afar. The farmers
/ and their works are scarcely more obvious than

^woodchucks and their burrows. Man and his
affairs, church and state and school, trad6 and
commerce, and manufactures and agriculture,
even politics, the most alarming of them all, —
I am pleased to see how little space they occupy
in the landscape. Politics is but a narrow field.

WALKING 261

and that still narrower highway yonder leads to
it. I sometimes direct the traveler thither. If
you would go to the political world, follow the
great road, — follow that market-man, keep his
dust in your eyes, and it will lead you straight
to it; for it, too, has its place merely, and does
not occupy all space. I pass from it as from
a bean-field into the forest, and it is forgotten.
In one half -hour I can walk off to some portion
of the earth's .surface where a man does not
stand from one year's end to another, and there,
consequently, politics are not, for they are but
as the cigar-smoke of a man.

The village is the place to which the roads
tend, a sort of expansion of the highway, as a
lake of a river. It is the body of which roads
are the arms and legs, — a trivial or quadrivial
place, the thoroughfare and ordinary of travel-
ers. The word is from the Latin vUla^ which
together with ma, a way, or more anciently ved
and vdla^ Varro derives from veho^ to carry,
because the villa is the place to and from which
things are carried. They who got their living
by teaming were said vdlaturam facere. Hence,
too, the Latin word vUis and our vile; also
villain* This suggests what kind of degeneracy
villagers are liable to. They are wayworn by
the travel that goes by and over them, without
traveling themselves.

262 WALKING

Some do not walk at all ; others walk in the
highways; a few walk across lots. Roads are
made for horses and men of business. I do not
travel in them much, comparatively, because I
am not in a hurry to get to any tavern or
grocery or livery-stable or depot to which they
lead. I am a good horse to travel, but not
from choice a roadster. The landscape-painter
uses the figures of men to mark a road. He
would not make that use of my figure. I walk
out into a Nature such as the old prophets and
poets, Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked
in. You may name it America, but it is not
America; neither Americus Vespucius, nor
Columbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of
it. There is a truer account of it in mythology
than in any history of America, so called, that
I have seen.

However, there are a few old roads that may
be trodden with profit, as if they led somewhere
now that they are nearly discontinued. There
is the Old Marlborough Road, which does not
go to Marlborough now, methinks, unless that
is Marlborough where it carries me. I am the
bolder to speak of it here, because I presume
that there are one or two such roads in every
town.

viiXisa

1 fear «ot bo go«-
) -Ko oilier B^a^' ^

■vJhoUV/all alone,

mo«e» tjoiihe bone,
Sfbexe life U. »--.«*

^ Co«Bte»tly ea^^ y^

WiA&eiBBtmottott

T can (tet enough P*^ „ „ ,
Jr01dMaxl.oxo^^«°^-

Nobody rep»«» '*^\^ .
For nobody wears it ,
ItisaUvingway,
AstheChristianBsay.

Kot many iibere be

^VHio enter therein.
Only iihe guests °fii^e
Iridnnan Qmn.

What is it, 'hat '"'^'^.^
B«t»direoti««""t*''~'

Of eoing soTMvhere <
Bnt travelers none ;

264

WALKING

Cenotaphs of the towns

Named on their crowns.

It is worth g^oii^ to see

Where yon might be.

What^ng^

Did the thin^,

I am still wondering ;

Set ap how or whan,

By what selectmen,

Gonrgas or Lee,

Clark or Darby ?
^ They 're a great endeavor
VXo be something forever;

B!v>k tablets of stone,

WherTa^traveler might groan,

And in one seinenoe

Grave all that is known ;

Which another mig£t read,

In his extreme need.

I know one or two

Lines that would do,

Literature that might stand

All over the land,

Which a man could remember

Till next December,

And read again in the Spring,

After the thawing.
If with fancy unfurled

You leave your abode,
You may go round the world
By the Old Marlborough Boad.

At present, in this vicinity, the best part of
the land is not private property; the landscape
is not owned, and the walker enjoys compara-
tive freedom. But possibly the day will come

WALKING 266

when it will be partitioned off into so-called
pleasure-grounds, in whicli a few will take a
narrow and exclusive pleasure only, — when
fences shall be multiplied, and man-traps and *
other engines invented to confine men to the
public road, and walking over the surface of
God's earth shall be construed to mean trespass-
ing on some gentleman's grounds. To enjoy a
thing exclusively is conmionly to exclude your-
self from the true enjoyment of it. Let us
improve our opportunities, then, before the evil j
days come.

What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to
determine whither we will walk? T hp.1ip.vft f.h^^t
there is a ^tle magne tism in Nature, which ^
we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us
arigfatT ^t IS not indifferent tgnig"Tr6ich way
we walk. There is a right way; but we are
very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to
take the wrong one. We would fain take that
walk, never yet taken by us through this actual
world, which is perfectly symbolical of the path
which we love to travel in the interior and ideal
world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it dif-
ficult to choose our direction, because it does
not yet exist distinctly in our idea.

When I go out of the house for a walk, un-
certain as yet whither I will bend my steps, and

266 WALKING

submit myself to my instinct to decide for me,
I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem,
that I finally and inevitably settle southwest,
toward some particular wood or meadow or de-
serted pasture or hill in that direction. My
needle is slow to settle, — varies a few degrees,
and does not always point due southwest, it is
true, and it ha* good authority for this varia-
tion, but it always settles between west and
south-southwest. The future lies that way to
me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and
richer on that side. The outline which would
bound my walks would be, not a circle, but a
parabola, or rather like one of those cometary
orbits which have been thought to be non-re-
turning curves, in this case opening westward,
in which my house occupies the place of the-
sun. I turn round and round irresolute some-
times for a quarter of an hour, until I decide,
for a thousandth time, that I will walk into the
southwest or west. Eastward I go only by
force; but westward I go free. Thither no
business leads me. It is hard for me to believe
that I shall, find fair landscapes or sufficient
wildness and freedom behind the eastern horizon.
I am not excited by the prospect of a Walk
thither; but I believe that the forest which I see
in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly
toward the setting sun, and there are no towns

WALKING 267

nor cities in it of enough consequence to disturb
me. Let me live where I will, on this side is
the city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am
leaving the city more and more, and withdraw-
ing into the wilderness. I should not lay so
much stress on this fact, if I did not believe that
something like this is the prevailing tendency of
my countrymen. I must walk toward Oregon,
and not toward Europe. And that way the na-
tion is moving, and I may say that mankind pro-
gress from east to west. Within a few years we
have witnessed the phenomenon of a southeast-
ward migration, in the settlement of Australia;
but this affects us as a retrograde movement,
and, judging from the moral and physical char-
acter of the first generation of Australians, has
not yet proved a successful experiment. The
eastern Tartars think that there is nothing west
beyond Thibet. "The world ends there," say
they; "beyond there is nothing but a shoreless
sea." It is unmitigated East where they live.

We go eastward to realize history and study
the works of art and literature, retracing the
steps of the race; we go ^irestward as into the
future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure.
The Atlantic is a Lethean stream, in our pas-
sage over which we have had an opportunity to
forget the Old World and its institutions. If
we do not succeed this time, there is perhaps one

268 WALKING

more cliance for the race left before it arrives on
the banks of the Styx; and that is in the Lethe
of the Pacific, which is three times as wide.

I know not how significant it is, or how far it
is an evidence of singularity, that an individual
should thus consent in his pettiest walk with
the general movement of the race; but I know
that something akin to the migratory instinct in
birds and quadrupeds, — which, in some in-
stances, is known to have affected the squirrel
tribe, impelling them to a general and mysteri-
ous movement, in which they were seen, say
some, crossing the broadest rivers, each on its
particular chip, with its tail raised for a sail,
and bridging narrower streams with their dead,
— that something like the furor which affects
the domestic cattle in the spring, and which is
referred to a worm in their tails, -r- affects bpth
nations and individuals, either perennially or
from time to time. Not a flock of wild geese
cackles over our town, but it to some extent
unsettles the value of real estate here, and, if
I were a broker, I should probably take that
disturbance into account.

** Than longen folk to gt>n on pilgrimages,
And palmerea for to seken strange strondes."

Every sunset which I witness inspires me with
the desire to go to a West as distant and as fair
as that into which the sun goes down. He ap-

WALKING 269

peaTS to migrate westward daily, and tempt us
to follow him. He is the Great Western Pioneer
whom the nations follow. We dream all night
of those moimtain-ridges in the horizon, though
they may be of vapor only, which were last
gilded by his rays. The island of Atlantis, and
the islands and gardens of the Hesperides,' a sort
of terrestrial paradise, appear to have been the
Oreat West of the ancients, enveloped in mys-
tery and poetry. Who has not seen in imagi-
nation, when looking into the sunset sky, the
gardens of the Hesperides, and the foundation of
all those fables?

Columbus felt the westward tendency more
strongly than any before. He obeyed it, and
found a New World for Castile and Leon. The
herd of men in those days scented fresh pastures
from afar.

** And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was dropped into the western bay ;
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue ;
To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new."

Where on the globe can there be found an
area of equal extent with that occupied by the
bulk of our States, so fertile and so rich and
varied in its productions, and at the same time
so habitable by the European, as this is? Mi-«
chaux, who knew but part of them, says that
^^the species of large trees are much more nu-

270 WALKING

merous in North America than in Europe ; in the
United States there are more than one hundred
and forty species that exceed thirty feet in
height; in France there are but thirty that at-
tain this size." Later botanists more than con-
firm his observations. Humboldt came to Amer-
ica to realize his youthful dreams of a tropical
vegetation, and he beheld it in its greatest per-
fection in the primitive forests of the Amazon,
the most gigantic wilderness on the earth, which
he has so eloquently described. The geogra-
pher Guyot, himself a European, goes farther,
— farther than I am ready to follow him ; yet

! not when he says: ^^As the plant is made for
the animal, as the vegetable world is made for
the animal world, America is made for the man
of the Old World.-. . . The man of the Old
World sets out upon his way. Leaving the
highlands of Asia, be descends from station to
station towards Europe. Each of his steps is
marked by a new civilization superior to the
preceding, by a greater power of development.
Arrived at the Atlantic, he pauses on the shore
of this unknown ocean, the bounds of which he
knows not, and turns upon his footprints for an

l^ instant." When he has exhausted the rich soil
of Europe, and reinvigorated himself, "then
recommences his adventurous career westward as
in the earliest ages." So far Guyot.

WALKING 271

From this western impulse coming in contact
with the barrier of the Atlantic sprang the com-
merce and enterprise of modern times. The
younger Michaux, in his "Travels West of the
AUeghanies in 1802;'' says that the common in-
quiry in the newly settled West was, " * From
what part of the world have you come?' As if
these vast and fertile regions would naturally be
the place of meeting and common country of
all the inhabitants of the globe."

To use an obsolete Latin word, I might say,
JSx Oriente Ivx ; ex Occidente frux. From the
East light; from the West fruit.

Sir Francis Head, an English traveler and a
Governor-General of Canada, tells us that "in
both the northern and southern hemispheres of
the New World,. Nature has not only outlined •
her works on a larger scale, but has painted t^e -
whole picture with brighter and more costly
colors than she used in' delineating and in beau-
tifying the Old World. • . . The heavens of
America appear infinitely higher, the sky is
bluer, the air is fresher, the cold is intenser, the
moon looks larger, the stars are brighter, the
thunder is louder, the lightning is vivider, the
wind is stronger, the rain is heavier, the moun-
tains are higher, the rivers longer, the forests
bigger, the plains broader." This statement will
do at least to set against Buffon's account of
this part of the world and its productions.

272 WALKING

Linnaeus said long ago, ^^Nescio qusB facies
Iceta^ glabra plantis Americanis: I know not
what there is of joyous and smooth in the aspect
of American plants; " and I think that in this
country there are no, or at most very few,
AfricanoB bestice, African beasts, as the Bomans
called them, and that in this respect also it is
peculiarly fitted for the habitation of man. We
are told that within three miles of the centre
of the East-Indian city of Singapore, some of
the inhabitants are annually carried off by tigers ;
but the traveler can lie down in the woods at
night almost anywhere in North America with-
out fear of wild beasts.

r These are encouraging testimonies. If the
moon looks larger here than in Europe, proba-
bly the sun looks larger also. If the heavens of
America appear infinitely higher, and the stars
brighter, I trust that these facts are symbolical
of the height to which the philosophy and poetry
and religion of her inhabitants may one day
soar. At length, perchance, the immaterial
heaven will appear as much higher to the Amer-
ican mind,, and the intimations that star it as

( much brighter. For I beKeve that climate does
thus react on man, — as there is something in
the mountam-air that feeds the spirit and in-
spires. Will not man grow to greater perfec-
tion intellectually as well as physically under

WALKING 278

these influences? Or is it unimportant how
many foggy days there are in his life? I trust
that we shall be more imaginative, that our
thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more
ethereal, as our shy, — our understanding more
comprehensive and broader, like our plains, —
our intellect generally on a grander scale, like
our thunder and lightning, our rivers and moun-
tains and forests, — and our hearts shall even
correspond in breadth and depth and grandeur
to our inland seas. Perchance there will appear
to the traveler something, he knows not what,
of losta and glabra^ of joyous and serene, in our
very faces. Else to what end does the world go
on, aad why was America discoyered?
To Americans I hardly need to say, —

" Westward the star of empire takes its way.'*

As a tanie patriot, I should be ashamed to think
that Adam in paradise was more favorably sit-
uated on the whole than the backwoodsman in
this country.

Our sympathies in Massachusetts are not con-
fined to New England ; though we may be es-
tranged from the South, we sympathize with the
West. There is the home of the younger sons,
as among the Scandinavians they took to the sea
for their inheritance. It is too late to be study-
ing Hebrew; it is more important to understand
even the slang of to-day.

274 WALKING

Some months ago I went to see a panorama of
the Rhine. It was like a dream of the Middle
Ages. I floated down its historic stream in
something more than imagination, under bridges
built by the Romans, and repaired by later
heroes, past cities and castles whose very names
were music to my ears, and each of which was
the subject of a legend. There were Ehren-
breitstein and Rolandseck and Coblentz, which
I knew only in history. They were ruins that
interested me chiefly. There seemed to come
up from its waters and its vine-ckd hills and
vaUeys a hushed music as of Crusaders depart-
ing for the Holy Land. I floated along under
the spell of enchantment, as if I had been
transported to an heroic age, and breathed an
atmosphere of chivalry.

Soon after, I went to see a panorama of the
Mississippi, and as I worked my way up the
river in the light of to-day, and saw the steam-
boats wooding up, counted the rising cities, gazed
on the fresh ruins of Nauvoo, beheld the In-
dians moving west across the steeam, and, as
before I had looked up the MoseUe, now looked
up the Ohio and the Missouri and heard the
legends of Dubuque and of Wenona's CliflE, —
still thinking more of the future than of the past
or present, — I saw that this was a Rhine
stream of a different kind; that the foundations

WALKING 275

of castles were yet to be laid, and the famous
bridges were yet to be thrown over the river;
and I felt that this was the heroic age itself^
though we know it not, for the hero is commonly
the simplest and obscurest of men.

The West of which I speak is but another"^
name for the Wild ; and what I have been pre-
paring to say is, that in Wildness is the preser-
vation of the World. Every tree sends its fibres
forth in search of the Wild. The cities import
it at any price. Men plough and sail for it.
From the forest and wilderness come the tonics
and barks which brace mankind. Our ancestors
were savages. The story of Komulus and Re-
mus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaning-
less fable. The founders of every state which
has risen to eminence have drawn their nourish-
ment and vigor from a similar wild source. It
was because the children of the Empire were not
suckled by the wolf that they wero conquered
and displaced by the children of the northern ^
forests who were.

I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, V

and in the night in which the com grows. We
require an infusion of hemlock-spruce or arbor
vitae in our tea. There is a difference between
eating and drinking for strength and from mere
gluttony. The Hottentots eagerly devour the

276 WALKING

marrow of the koodoo and other antelopes raw^
as a matter of course. Some of our Northern In-
dians eat raw the marrow of the Arctic reindeer,
as well as various other parts, including the
summits of the antlers, as long as they are soft.
And herein, perchance, they have stolen a march
on the cooks of Paris. They get what usually
goes to feed the fire. This is probably better
than stall-fed beef and slaughter-house pork to
make a man of. Give me a wildness whose
glance no civilization can endure, — as if we
lived on the marrow of koodoos devoured raw.

There are some intervals which border the
strain of the wood-thrush, to which I would
migrate, — wild lands where no settler has
squatted; to which, methinks, I am already
acclimated.

The African hunter Cummings tells us that
the skin of the eland, as well as that of most
other antelopes just killed, emits the most deli-
cious perfume of trees and grass. I would have
every man so much like a wild antelope, so much
a part and parcel of Nature, that his very per-
son should thus sweetly advertise our senses of
his presence, and remind us of those parts of
Nature which he most haunts. I feel no dispo-
sition to be satirical, when the trapper's coat
emits the odor of musquash even ; it is a sweeter
scent to me than that which commonly exhales

. WALKING 277

from the merchant's or the scholar's garments.
When I go into their wardrobes and handle their
vestments, I am reminded of no grassy plains
and flowery meads which they have frequented,
but of dusty merchants' exchanges and libraries
rather.

A tanned skin is something more than re-
spectable, and perhaps olive is a fitter color than
white f Of a man, — a denizen of the woods.
"The pale white manl" I do not wonder that
the African pitied him. Darwin the naturalist
says, "A white man bathing by the side of a
Tahitian was like a plant bleached by the gar-
dener's art, compared with a fine, dark green
one, growing vigorously in the open fields."

Ben Jonson exclaims, —

" How near to good is what is fair! "

So I would say, —

How near to good is what is voUd I

Life consists with wildness. The most alive is
the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its pres-
ence refreshes him. One who pressed forward
incessantly and never rested from his labors, who
grew fast and made infinite demands on life,
would always find himself in a new country or
wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material
of life. He would be climbing over the prostrate
stems of primitive forest-trees.

278 WALKING

Hope and the future for me are not in
lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and
cities, but in the impervious and quaking
swamps. When, formerly, I have analyzed my
partiality for some farm which I had contem-
plated purchasing, I have frequently found that
I was attracted solely by a few square rods of
impermeable and unfathomable bog, — a na-
tural sink in one comer of it. That was the
jewel which dazzled me. I derive more of my
subsistence from the swamps which surround my
native town than from the cultivated gardens in
, the village. There are no richer parterres to
my eyes than the dense beds of dwarf andro-
meda ( Cassandra calyculata) which cover these
tender places on the earth's surface. Botany
cannot go farther than tell me the names of the
shrubs which grow there, — the high-blueberry,
panicled andromeda, lamb-kill, azalea, and rho-
dora, — all standing in the quaking sphagmun.
I often think that I should like to have my house
front on this mass of dull red bushes, omitting
other flower plots and borders, transplanted
spruce and trim box, even graveled walks, — to
have this fertile spot under my windows, not a
few imported barrbw-fulls of soil only to cover
the sand which was thrown out in digging the
cellar. Why not put my house, my parlor, be-
hind this plot, instead of behind that meagre

WALKING 279

assemblage of curiosities, that poor apology for
a Nature and Art, which I call my front yard?
It is an effort to clear up and make a decent
appearance when the carpenter and mason have
departed, though done as much for the passer-by
as the dweller within. The most tasteful front-
yard fence was never an agreeable object of study
to me ; the most elaborate ornaments, acorn-tops,
or what not, soon wearied and disgusted me.
Bring your sills up to the veiy edge of the
swamp, then (though it may not be the best
place for a dry cellar), so that there be no access
on that side to citizens. Front-yards are not
made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you
could go in the back way.

Yes, though you may think me perverse, if it
were proposed to me to dwell in the neighbor-
hood of the most beautiful garden that ever hu-
man art contrived, or else of a Dismal Swamp, I
should certainly decide for the swamp. How
vain, then, have been all your labors, citizens,
for me !

My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the
outward dreariness. Give me the ocean, the
desert, or the wilderness! In the desert, pure
air and solitude compensate for want of moisture
and fertility. The traveler Button says of it :
"Your morale improves; you become frank and
cordial, hospitable and single-minded. ... In

280 WALKING

the desert, spirituous liquors excite only disgust.
There is a keen enjoyment in a mere animal ex-
istence." They who have been traveling long
on the steppes of Tartary say: "On reentering
cultivated lands, the agitation, perplexity, and
turmoil of civilization oppressed and suffocated
us; the air seemed to fail us, and we felt every
moment as if about to die of asphyxia." When
I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood,
the thickest and most interminable and, to the
citizen, most dismal swamp. I enter a swamp
as a sacred place, — a sanctum sawctorwm.
There is the strength, the marrow of Nature.
The wild-wood covers the virgin-mould, — and
the same soil is good for men and for trees. A
man's health requires as many acres of meadow
to his prospect as his farm does loads of muck.
There are the strong meats on which he feeds.

r A town is saved, not more by the righteous men
in it than by the woods and swamps that sur-
round it. A township where one primitive for-
est waves above while another primitive forest
rots below, — such a town is fitted to raise not
only com and potatoes, but poets and philoso-
phers for the coming ages. In such a soil grew
Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of
such a wilderness comes the Reformer eating

J locusts and wild honey.

To preserve wild animals implies generally

WALKING 281

the creation of a forest for them to dwell in or
resort to. So it is with man. A hundred years
ago they sold bark in our streets peeled from
our own woods. In the very aspect of those
primitive and nigged trees there was, methinks,
a tanning principle which hardened and consoli-
dated the fibres of men's thoughts. Ah I already
1 shudder for these comparatively degenerate
days of my native village, when you cannot col-
lect a load of bark of good thickness, — and we
no longer produce tar and turpentine.

The civilized nations — Greece, Home, Eng-
land — have been sustained by the primitive for-
ests which anciently rotted where they stand.
They survive as long as the soil is not exhausted.
Alas for human culture ! little is to be expected
of a nation, when the vegetable mould is ex-
hausted, and it is compelled to make manure of
the bones of its fathers. There the poet sustains
himself merely by his own superfluous fat, and
the philosopher comes down on his marrow-
bones.

It is said to be the task of the American ^^to
work the virgin soil," and that "agriculture here
already assimies proportions unknown every-
where else." I think that the farmer displaces
the Indian even because he redeems the meadow,
and so makes himself stronger and in some re-
spects more natural. I was surveying for a man

282 WALKING

the other day a single straight line one hundred
and thirty-two rods long, through a swamp, at
whose entrance might have been written the
words which Dante read over the entrance to the
infernal regions, — "Leave all hope, ye that en-
ter," — that is, of ever getting out again; where
at one time I saw my employer actually up to
his neck and swimming for his life in his pro-
perty, though it was still winter. He had an-
other similar swamp which I could not survey at
all, because it was completely under water, and
nevertheless, with regard to a third swamp,
which I did survey from a distance^ he remarked
to me, true to his instincts, that he would not
part with it for any consideration, on account of
the mud which it contained. And that man
intends to put a girdling ditch round the whole
in the course of forty months, and so redeem it
by the magic of his spade* I refer to him only
as the type of a class.

I The weapons with which we have gained our
most important victories, which should be
handed down as heirlooms from father to son,
are not the sword and the lance, but the bush-
whack, the turf -cutter, the spade, and the bog-
hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow,
and begrimed with the dust of many a hard-

\ fought field. The very winds blew the Indian's
corn-field into the meadow, and pointed out the

WALKING 283

way whicli he had not the skill to follow. He
had no better implement with which to intrench
himself in the land than a clam-sheU. But the
farmer is armed with plough and spade.

In literature it is only the wild that attracts
us. Dullness is but another name for tameness.
It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking in
"Hamlet " and the "Iliad," in all the Scriptures
and Mythologies, not learned in the schools, that
delights us. As the wild duck is more swift
and beautiful than the tame, so is the wild —
the mallard — thought, which 'mid falling dews
wings its way above the fens. A truly good
book is something as natural, and as unexpect-
edly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a
wild flower discovered on the prairies of the
West or in the jungles of the East. Genius is a
light which makes the darkness visible, like the
lightning's flash, which perchance shatters the
temple of knowledge itself, — and not a taper
lighted at the hearth-stone of the race, which
pales before the light of common day.

English literature, from the days of the min-
strels to the Lake Poets, — Chaucer and Spenser
and Milton, and even Shakespeare, included, —
breathes no quite fresh and, in this sense, wild
strain. It is an essentially tame and civilized
literature, reflecting Greece and Bome. Her
wilderness is a greenwood, her wild man a Robin

284 WALKING

Hood. There is plenty of genial love of Nature,
but not so much of Nature herself. Her chron-
icles inform us when her wild animals, but not
when the wild man in her, became extinct.

The science of Hmnboldt is one thing, poetry-
is another thing. The poet to-day, notwith-
standing all the discoveries oi science, and the
accmnulated learning of mankind, enjoys no
advantage over Homer.

Where is the literature which gives expres-
sion to Nature? He would be a poet who could
impress the winds and streams into his service,
to speak for him; who nailed words to their
primitive senses, as farmers drive dovm stakes
in the spring, which the frost has heaved; who
derived his words as often as he used them, —
transplanted them to his page with earth adher-
ing to their roots ; whose words were so true and
fresh and natural that they would appear to ex-
pand like the buds at the approach of spring,
though they lay half -smothered between two
musty leaves in a library, — aye, to bloom and
bear fruit there, after their kind, annually, for
the faithful reader, in sympathy with surround-
ing Nature.

I do not know of any poetry to quote which
adequately expresses this yearning for the Wild.
Approached from this side, the best poetry is
tame. I do not know where to find in any liter-

WALKING 285

ature, ancient or modem, any account which
contents me of that Nature with which even I
am acquainted. You will perceive that I de-
mand something which no Augustan nor Eliza-
bethan age, which no culture^ in short, can give. |

Mythology comes nearer to it than anything.
How much more fertile a Nature, at least, has
Grecian mythology its root in than English
literature ! Mythology is the crop which the Old
World bore before its soil was exhausted, before
the fancy and imagination were affected with
blight; and which it stiU bears, wherever its
pristine vigor is unabated. All other literatures -
endure only as the elms which overshadow our
houses; but this is like the great dragon-tree
of the Western Isles, as old as mankind, and,
whether that does or not, will endure as long;
for the decay of other literatures makes the soil
in which it thrives.

The West is preparing to add its fables to
those of the East. The valleys of the Ganges,
the Nile, and the Bhine having yielded their
crop, it remains to be seen what the valleys of
the Amazon, the Plate, the Orinoco, the St.
Lawrence, and the Mississippi will produce.
Perchance, when, in the course of ages, Amer-
ican liberty has become a fiction of the past, —
as it is to some extent a fiction of the present,
— the poets of the world will be inspired by -
American mythology.

286 WALKING

The wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not
the less true, though they may not recommend
themselves to the sense which is most common
among Englishmen and Americans to-day. It
is not every truth that recommends itself to the
common sense. Nature has a place for the wild
clematis as well as for the cabbage. Some ex-
pressions of truth are reminiscent, — others
merely sensible^ as the phrase is, — others pro-
phetic. Some forms of disease, even, may pro-
phesy forms of health. The geologist has dis-
covered that the figures of serpents, griffins, fly-
ing dragons, and other fanciful embellishments
of heraldry, have their prototypes in the forms
of fossil species which were extinct before man
was created, and hence ^4ndicate a faint and
shadowy knowledge of a previous state of organic
existence." The Hindoos dreamed that the
earth rested on an elephant, and the elephant
on a tortoise, and the tortoise on a serpent ; and
though it may be an unimportant coincidence,
it will not be out of place here to state, that a
fossil tortoise has lately been discovered in Asia
- large enough to support an elephant. I confess
that I am partial to these wild fancies, which
transcend the order of time and development.
They are the sublimest recreation of the intel-
lect. The partridge loves peas, but not those
that go with her into the pot.

WALKING 287

In short, all good things are wild ajid free.
There is something in a strain of music, whether
produced by an instrument or by the human
voice, — take the sound of a bugle in a summer
night, for instance, — which by its wildness, to
speak without satire, reminds me of the cries
emitted by wild beasts in their native forests. It
is so much of their wildness as I can imder-
stand. Give me for my friends and neighbors
wild men, not tame ones. The wildness of the
savage is but a faint syinbol of the awful ferity
with which good men and lovers meet.

I love even to see the domestic animals reassert .
their native rights, — any evidence that they \
have not wholly lollt their original wild habits
and vigor; as when my neighbor's cow breaks
out of her pasture early in the spring and boldly
swims the river, a cold, gray tide, twenty-five
or thirty rods wide, swollen by the melted snow.
It is the buffalo crossing the Mississippi. This \
exploit confers some dignity on the herd in my
eyes, - abeady dignified. The seeds of instinct
are preserved under the thick hides of cattle and
horses, like seeds in the bowels of the earth, an
indefinite period.

Any sportiveness in cattle is unexpected. I
saw one day a herd of a dozen bullocks and cows
running about and frisking in unwieldy sport,
like huge rats, even like kittens. They shook

288 WALKING

their heads, raised their tails, and rushed up and
down a hill, and I perceived by their horns, as
well as by their activity, their relation to the
deer tribe. But, alas! a sudden loud Whoa/
would have damped their ardor at once, reduced
them from venison to beef, and stiffened their
sides and sinews like the locomotive. Who but
the Evil One has cried, "Whoa! " to mankind?
Indeed, the life of cattle, like that of many men,
is but a sort of locomotiveness ; they move a
side at a time, and man, by his machinery, is
meeting the horse and the ox half-way. What-
ever part the whip has touched is thenceforth
palsied. Who would ever think of a side of any
of the supple cat tribe, as we speak of a side of
beef?

I rejoice that horses and steers have to be
broken before they can be made the slaves of
men, and that men themselves have some wild
oats still left to sow before they become submis-
sive members of society. Undoubtedly, all men
are not equally fit subjects for civilization; and
because the majority, like dogs and sheep, are
tame by inherited disposition, this is no reason
why the others should have their natures broken
that they may be reduced to the same level.
Men are in the main alike, but they were made
several in order that they might be various. If
a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly

WALKING 289

or quite as well as another; if a high one, indi-
vidual excellence is to be regarded. Any man
can stop a hole to keep the wind away, but no
other man could serve so rare a use as the author
of this /illustration did. Confucius says, ^^The
skins of the tiger and the leopard, when they are
tanned, are as the skins of the dog and the sheep
tanned." But it is not the part of a true cul-
ture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make
sheep ferocious; and tanning their skins for
shoes is not the best use to which they can be
put.

When looking over a list of men's names in a
foreign language, as of military officers, or of
authors who have written on a particular subject,
I am reminded once more that there ig nothing
in a name. The name Menschikoff, for instance,
has nothing in it to my ears more human than a
whisker, and it may belong to a rat. As the
names of the Poles and Russians are to us, so
are ours to them. It is as if they had been
named by the child's rigmarole, — lery wiery
ichery van, tittle-tol-tan. I see in my mind a
herd of wild creatures swarming over the earth,
and to each the herdsman has affixed some bar-
barous sound in his own dialect. The names of
men are of course as cheap and meaningless as
Bose and Tray, the names of dogs.

290 WALKING

Metliinks it would be some advantage to
philosophy, if men were named merely in the
gross, as they are known. It would be neces-
sary only to know the genus and perhaps the
race or variety, to know the individual. We
are not prepared to believe that every private
soldier in a Roman army had a name of his own,
— because we have not supposed that he had a
character of his own.

At present our only true names are nicknames.
I knew a boy who, from his peculiar energy,
was called "Buster" by his playmates, and this
rightly supplanted his Christian name. Some
travelers tell us that an Indian had no name
given him at first, but earned it, and his name
was his fame; and among some tribes he ac-
quired a new name with every new exploit. It
is pitiful when a man bears a name for conven-
ience merely, who has earned neither name nor
fame.

I will not allow mere names to make distinc-
tions for me, but still see men in herds for all
them. A familiar name cannot make a man less
strange to me. It may be given to a savage
who retains in secret his own wild title earned in
the woods. We have a wild savage in us, and a
savage name is perehance somewhere recorded as
ours. I see that my neighbor, who bears the
familiar epithet William, or Edwin, takes it off

WALKING 291

with his jacket. It does not adhere to him
when asleep or in anger, or aroused by any pas>
sion or inspiration. I seem to hear pronounced
by some of his kin at such a time his original
wild name in some jaw-breaking or else melodi-
ous tongue.

Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of
ours, Nature ^ying all_ar oundy with such beauty,
a nd such affection for her children, as the leo -
pard; and yet we are so early weaned from her
breast to society, to that culture which is exclu-
fl^v^^ljr fl,p iTi4:oT*Q^f4/^Ti of man on man^ — a sort of

breeding in and in, which produces at most a
merely English nobility, a civilization destined
to have a speedy limit. -^

In society, in the best institutions of men, it
is easy to detect a certain precocity. When we
should still be growing children, we are already
little men. Give me a culture which imports
much muck from the meadows, and deepens the
soil, — not that which trusts to heating manures,
and improved implements and modes of culture
only!

Many a poor sore-eyed student that I have
heard of would grow faster, both intellectually
and physically, if, instead of sitting up so very
late, he honestly slumbered a fooPs allowance.

There may be an excess even of informing

292 WALKING

light. Niepoe, a Frenchman, discovered ^^ ac-
tinism," that power in the sim's rays which
produces a chemical effect ; that granite rocks,
and stone structures, and statues of metal, ^^are
all alike destructively acted upon during the
hours of simshine, and, but for provisions of
Nature no less wonderful, would soon perish
under the delicate touch of the most subtile of
the agencies of the universe." But he obseifved
that ^' those bodies wl^ich unclerwent this change
during the daylight possessed the power of re-
storing themselves to their original conditions
during the hours of night, when this excitement
was no longer influencing them." Hence it has
been inferred that ^^the hours of darkness are as
necessary to the inorganic creation as we know
night and sleep are to the organic kingdom.'^
Not even does the moon shine every night, but
gives place to darkness.

' I would not have every man nor every part of
a man cultivated, any more than I would have
every acre of earth cultivated: part will be til-
lage, but the greater part will be meadow and
forest, not only serving an immediate use, but
preparing a mould against a distant future, by
the annual decay of the vegetation which it sup-

.. ports.

There are other letters for the child to learn
than those which Cadmus invented. The Span-

I 1

WALKING 298

iards have a good term to express this wild and
dusky knowledge, Gramatica parda^ tawny
grammar, a kind of mother-wit derived from
that same leopard to which I have referred.

We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion
of Useful Knowledge. It is said that knowledge
is power ; and the like. Methinks there is equal
need of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Ignorance, what we will call Beautiful Know-
ledge, a knowledge useful in a higher sense : for
what is most of our boasted so-called knowledge
but a conceit that we know something, which
robs us of the advantage of our actual igno-
rance? What we call knowledge is often our
positive ignorance ; ignorance our negative
knowledge. By long years of patient industry
and reading of the newspapers, — for what are
the libraries of science but files of newspapers?
— a man accumulates a myriad facts, lays them
up in his memory, and then when in some spring
of his life he saimters abroad into the Great
Fields of thought, he, as it were, goes to grass
like a horse and leaves all his harness behind in
the stable. I would say to the Society for the
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, sometimes, —
Go to grass. You have eaten hay long enough.
The spring has come with its green crop. The
very cows are driven to their country pastures
before the end of May; though I have heard of

(

294 WALKING

one unnatural farmer who kept liis cow in the
barn and fed her on hay all the year round. So,
frequently, the Society for the Diffusion of Use-
ful Knowledge treats its cattle.

A man's ignorance sometimes is not only use-
ful, but beautiful, — while his knowledge, so
called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides
being ugly. Which is the best man to deal
with, — he who knows nothing about a subject,
and, what is extremely rare, knows that he
knows nothing, or he who really knows some-
thing about it, but thinks that he knows all?

My desire for knowled^ is intermittent ; but
my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres un-
known to my feet is perennial and constant.
The highest that we can attain to is not Know-
ledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do
not know that this higher knowledge amoimts
to anything more definite than a novel and grand
surprise on a sudden revelation of the insuffi-
ciency of all that we called Knowledge before, —
a discovery that there are more things in heaven
and earth than are dreamed of in our philoso-
phy. It is the lighting up of the mist by the
sun. Man cannot know in any higher sense
than this, any more than he can look serenely
and with impunity in the face of the sun : 'Of rt
votavy ov Kctvov vo^o-as, — " You will not perceive
that, as perceiving a particular thing," say the
Chaldean Oracles.

WALKING 295

There is something servile in the habit of
seeking after a law which we may obey. We
may study the laws of matter at and for our
convenience, but a successful life knows no law.
It is an unfortunate discovery certainly, that of
a kw which binds us where we did not know
before that we were boimd. Live free, child of
the mist, — and with respect to knowledge we
are all children of the mist. The man who takes
the liberty to live is superior to all the laws, by
virtue of his relation to the law-maker. ^^ That is
active duty," says the Vishnu Purana, ^^which
is not for our bondage; that is knowledge which
is for our liberation : all other duty is good only
unto weariness; all other knowledge is only the
cleverness of an artist."

It is remarkable how few events or crises
there are in our histories; how little exercised
we have been in our minds; how few experi-
ences we have had. I would fain be assured
that I am growing apace and rankly, though
my very growth disturb this duU equanimity, - ;
though it be with struggle through long, dark, ^
muggy nights or seasons of gloom. It would bg^
well, if all our lives were a divine tragedy eyj^^
instead of this trivial comedy or farce. I^ exer-
Bunyan, and others appear to have bef^^y ^^j^
cised in their minds more than we: ^

296 WALKING

subjected to a kind of culture such as our dis-
trict schools and colleges do not contemplate.
Even Mahomet, though many may scream at his
name, had a good deal more to live for, aye, and
to die for, than they have commonly.

When, at rare intervals, some thought visits
one, as perchance he is walking on a railroad,
then indeed the cars go by without his hearing
them. But soon, by some inexorable law, our
life goes by and the cars return.

'* Gentle breeze, ihat wanderest nxiseen,
And bendest the thistles round Loira of storms^
Traveler of the windy glens,
Why hast thon left my ear so soon ? "

While almost all men feel an attraction draw-
ing them to society, few are attracted strongly
to Nature. In their reaction to Nature men
appear to me for the most part, notwithstand-
ing their arts, lower than the animals. It is
not often a beautiful relation, as in the case of
the animals. How little appreciation of the
beauty of the landscape there is among us 1 We
have to be told that the Greeks called the world
Kocrftos, Beauty, or Order, but we do not see
v^learly why they did so, and we esteem it at best
on^y a curious philological fact.

Fox my part, I feel that with regard to Nature
I live a sort of border life, on the confines of a
world into which I make occasional and tran-

WALKING 297

sieut forays only, and my patriotism and alle-
giance to the State into whose territories 1 seem
to retreat are those of a moss-trooper. Unto
a life which I call natural I would gladly fol-
low even a will-o'-the-wisp through bogs and
sloughs unimaginable, but no moon nor firefly
has shown me the causeway to it. Nature is a
personality so vast and universal that we have
never seen one of her features. The walker in
the familiar fields which stretch around my na-
tive town sometimes finds himself in another
land than is described in their owners' deeds,
as it were in some far-away field on the confines
of the actual Concord, where her jurisdiction
ceases, and the idea which the word Concord
suggests ceases to be suggested. These farms
which I have myself surveyed, these bounds
which I have set up, appear dimly still as
through a mist; but they have no chemistry
to fix them ; they fade from the surface of the
glass; and the picture which the painter painted
stands out dimly from beneath. The world
with which we are commonly acquainted leaves
no trace, and it wiU have no anniversary.

I took a walk on Spaulding's Farm the other
afternoon. I saw the setting sun lighting up
the opposite side of a stately pine wood. Its
golden rays straggled into the aisles of the wood
as into some noble hall. I was impressed as if

298 WALKING

some ancient and altogether admirable and shin-
ing family had settled there in that part of the
land called Concord, imknown to me, — to
whom the sun was servant, — who had not gone
into society in the village, — who had not been
called on. I saw their park, their pleasure-
ground, beyond through the wood, in Spauld-
ing's cranberry-meadow. The pines furnished
them with gables as they grew. Their house
was not obvious to vision ; the trees grew through
it. I do not know whether I heard the sounds
of a suppressed hilarity or not. They seemed
to recline on the sunbeams. They have sons
and daughters. They are quite well. The
farmer's cart-path, which leads directly through
their hall, does not in the least put them out, as
the muddy bottom of a pool is sometimes seen
through the reflected skies. They never heard
of Spaulding, and do not know that he is their
neighbor, — notwithstanding I heard him whis-
tle as he drove his team through the house.
Nothing can equal the serenity of their lives.
Their coat of arms is simply a lichen. I saw
it painted on the pines and oaks. Their attics
were in the tops of the trees. They are of no
politics. There was no noise of labor. I did
not perceive that they were weaving or spinning.
Yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and
hearing was done away, the finest imaginable

WALKING 299

sweet musical hum, — as of a distant hive in
May, which perchance was the sound of their
thinking. They had no idle thoughts, and no
one without could see their work, for their in-
dustry was not as in knots and excrescences em-
bayed.

But I find it difficult to remember them.
They fade irrevocably out of my mind even now
while I speak, and endeavor to recall them and
recollect myself. It is only after a long and
serious effort to recollect my best thoughts that
I become again aware of their cohabitancy. If
it were not for such families as this, I think I
should move out of Concord.

We are accustomed to say in New England that
few and fewer pigeons visit us every year. Our
forests furnish no mast for them. So, it would
seem, few and fewer thoughts visit each growing
man from year to year, for the grove in our
minds is laid waste, — sold to feed unnecessary
fires of ambition, or sent to mill, and there is
scarcely a twig left for them to perch on. They
no longer build nor breed with us. In some
more genial season, perchance, a faint shadow
fiits across the landscape of the mind, cast by
the wings of some thought in its vernal or
autumnal migration, but, looking up, we are
unable to detect the substance of the thought it-

300 WALKING

self. Our winged thoughts are turned to poul-
try. They no longer soar, and they attain only
to a Shanghai and Cochin - China grandeur.
Those gra-a-ate thoughts^ those gra-a-ate men
you hear of 1

We hug the earth, — how rarely we mount I
Methinks we might elevate ourselves a little
more. We might climb a tree, at least. I
foimd my account in climbing a tree once. It
was a tall white pine, on the top of a hill; and
though I got well pitched, I was well paid for
it, for I discovered new mountains in the hori-
zon which I had never seen before, — so much
more of the earth and the heavens. I might
have walked about the foot of the tree for three-
score years and ten, and yet I certainly should
never have seen them. But, above all, I dis-
covered aroimd me, — it was near the end of
June, — on the ends of the topmost branches
only, a few minute and delicate red cone-like
blossoms, the fertile flower of the white pine
looking heavenward. I carried siraightway to
the village the topmost spire, and showed it to
stranger jurymen who walked the streets, -r- for
it was court-week, — and to farmers and lum-
ber-dealers and wood-choppers and hunters, and
not one had ever seen the like before, but they
wondered as at a star dropped down. Tell of

WALKING 301

ancient arcliitects finishing their works on the
tops of columns as perfectly as on the lower
and more visible parts! Nature has from the
first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest
only toward the heavens, above men's heads and
unobserved by them. We see only the flowers
that are imder our feet in the meadows. The
pines have developed their delicate blossoms on
the highest twigs of the wood every summer for
ages, as well over the heads of Nature's red
children as of her white ones; yet scarcely a
farmer or hunter in the land has ever seen them.

Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the
present. He is blessed over aU mortals who
loses no moment of the passing life in remem-
bering the past. Unless our philosophy hears
the cock crow in every barn-yard within our
horizoi^, it is belated. That sound commonly
reminds us that we are growing rusty and an-
tique in our employments and habits of thought.
His philosophy comes down to a more recent
time than ours. There is something suggested
by it that is a newer testament, — the gospel
according to this moment. He has not fallen
astern ; he has got up early and kept up early,
and to be where he is is to be in season, in the
foremost rank of time. It is an expression of
the health and soundness of Nature, a brag for

302 WALKING

all the world, — healthiness as of a spring burst
forth, a new fountain of the Muses, to celebrate
this last instant of time. Where he lives no
fugitive slave laws are passed. Who has not
betrayed his master many times since last he
heard that note?

The merit of this bird's strain is in its free-
dom from all plaintiveness. The singer can
easily move us to tears or to laughter, but where
is he who can excite in us a pure morning joy?
When, in doleful dumps, breaking the awful
stillness of our wooden sidewalk on a Sunday,
or, perchance, a watcher in the house of mourn-
ing, I hear a cockerel crow far or near, I think
to myself, "There is one of us well, at any
rate," — and with a sudden gush return to my
senses.

^ We had a remarkable sunset one day last
November. I was walking in a meadow, the
source of a small brook, when the sun at last,
just before setting, after a cold gray day,
reached a clear stratum in the horizon, and the
softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the
dry grass and on the stems of the trees in the
opposite horizon and on the leaves of the shrub-
oaks on the hillside, while our shadows stretched
long over the meadow eastward, as if we were
the only motes in its beams. It was such a

. WALKING 303

light as we could not have imagined a moment
before, and the air also was so warm and serene
that nothing was wanting to make a paradise
of that meadow. When we reflected that this
was not a solitary phenomenon, never to hap-
pen again, but that it would happen forever
and ever an infinite number of evenings, and
cheer and reassure the latest child that walked
there, it was more glorious still.

The sun sets on some retired meadow, where
no house is visible, with all the glory and splen-
dor that it lavishes on cities, and perchance as
it has never set before, — where there is but a
soUtary marsh-hawk to have his wings gUded
by it, or only a musquash looks out from his
cabin, and there is some little black-veined

•

brook in the midst of the marsh, just beginning
to meander, winding slowly round a decaying
stump. We walked in so pure and bright a
light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, so
softly and serenely bright, I thought I had
never bathed in such a golden flood, without a
ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of
every wood and rising ground gleamed like the
boundary of Elysium, and the sun on our backs
seemed like a gentle herdsman driving us home
at evening.

So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till
one day the sun shall shine more brightly than

304 WALKING

ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our
minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives
with a great awakening light, as warm and
serene and golden as on a bankside in autumn.

4
f

AUTUMNAL TINTS

Europeans coming to America are surprised
by the brilliancy of our autumnal foliage. There
is no account of such a phenomenon in English
poetry, because the trees acquire but few bright
colors there. The most that Thomson says on
this subject in his " Autumn " is contained in the
lines, —

" But see the fading many-colored woods,
Shade deepening over shade, the conntry round
Imbrown ; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,
Of every hue, from wan declining g^en to sooty dark ; "

and in the line in which he speaks of

** Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods."

The autumnal change of our woods has not
made a deep impression on our own literature
yet. October has hardly tinged our poetry.

A great many, who have spent their lives in
cities, and have never chanced to come into the
country at this season, have never seen this, the
flower, or rather the ripe fruit, of the year. I
remember riding with one such citizen, who,
though a fortnight too late for the most brilliant
tints, was taken by surprise, and would not be-

806 AUTUMNAL TINTS

lieve that there had been any brighter. He
had never heard of this phenomenon before.
Not only many in our towns have never wit-
nessed it, but it is scarcely remembered by the
majority from year to year.

Most appear to confound changed leaves with
withered ones, as if they were to confound ripe
apples with rotten ones. I think that the change
to some higher color in a leaf is an evidence that
it has arrived at a late and perfect maturity, an-
swering to the maturity of fruits. It is gener-
ally the lowest and oldest leaves which change
first. But as the perfect winged and usually
bright-colored insect is short-lived, so the leaves
ripen but to fall.

Generally, every fruit, on ripening, and just
before it falls, when it commences a more inde-
pendent and individual existence, requiring less
nourishment from any source, and that not so
much from the earth through its stem as from
the sun and air, acquires a bright tint. So do
leaves. The physiologist says it is "due to an
increased absorption of oxygen." That is the
scientific account of the matter, — only a reasser-
tion of the fact. But I am more interested in
the rosy cheek than I am to know what particu-
lar diet the maiden fed on. The very forest and
herbage, the pellicle of the earth, must acquire
a bright color, an evidence of its ripeness, — as

AUTUMNAL TINTS 307

if the globe itself were a fruit on its stem, with
ever a cheek toward the sun.

Flowers are but colored leaves, fruits but ripe
ones. The edible part of most fruits is, as the
physiologist says, "the parenchyma or fleshy
tissue of the leaf," of which they are formed.

Our appetites have commonly confined our
views of ripeness and its phenomena, color,
mellowness, and perf ectness, to the fruits which
we eat, and we are wont to forget that an im-
mense harvest which we do not eat, hardly use
at all, is annually ripened by Nature. At our
annual Cattle Shows and Horticultural Exhibi-
tions, we make, as we think, a great show of
fair fruits, destined, however, to a rather igno-
ble end, fruits not valued for their beauty
chiefly. But round about and within our towns
there is annually another show of fruits, on an
infinitely grander scale, fruits which address our
taste for beauty alone.

October is the month for painted leaves.
Their rich glow now flashes round the world.
As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a
bright tint just before they fall, so the year near
its setting. October is its sunset sky; Novem-
ber the later twilight.

I formerly thought that it would be worth the
while to get a specimen leaf from each chang-
ing tree, shrub, and herbaceous plant, when it

808 AUTUMNAL TINTS

had acquired its brightest characteristic color,
in its transition from the green to the brown
state, outline it, and copy its color exactly,
with paint, in a book, which should be enti-
tled, "October, or Autumnal Tints;" — begin-
ning with the earliest reddening, Woodbine and
the lake of radical leaves, and coming down
through the Maples, Hickories, and Sumachs,
and many beautifully freckled leaves less gen-
erally known, to the latest Oaks and Aspens.
What a memento such a book would be ! You
would need only to turn over its leaves to take
a ramble through the autumn woods whenever
you pleased. Or if I could preserve the leaves
themselves, unfaded, it would be better still.
I have made but little progress toward such a
book, but I have endeavored, instead, to describe
all these bright tints in the order in which they
present themselves. The following are some
extracts from my notes.

THE PURPLE GRASSES.

By the twentieth of August, everywhere in
woods and swamps we are reminded of the fall,
both by the richly spotted Sarsaparilla leaves
and Brakes, and the withering and blackened
Skunk-Cabbage and Hellebore, and, by the
riverside, the already blackening Pontederia.

AUTUMNAL TINTS 809

The Purple Grass (Eragroatis pectinacea) is
now in the height of its beauty. I remember
still when I first noticed this grass particularly.
Standing on a hillside near our river, I saw,
thirty or forty rods off, a stripe of purple half
a dozen rods long, under the edge of a wood,
where the ground sloped toward a meadow. It
was as high-colored and interesting, though
not quite so bright, as the patches of Ehexia,
being a darker purple, like a berry's stain
laid on close and thick. On going to and ex-
amining it, I found it to be a kind of grass
in bloom, hardly a foot high, with but few green
blades, and a fine spreading panicle of purple
flowers, a shallow, purplish mist trembling
around me. Close at hand it appeared but a
dull purple, and made little impression on the
eye; it was even difficult to detect; and if you
plucked a single plant, you were surprised to
find how thin it was, and how little color it had.
But viewed at a distance in a favorable light,
it was of a fine lively purple, flower-like, enrich-
ing the earth. Such puny causes combine to
produce these decided effects. I was the more
surprised and charmed because grass is com-
monly of a sober and humble color.

With its beautiful purple blush it reminds
me, and supplies the place, of the Ehexia,
which is now leaving off, and it is one of the most

810 AUTUMNAL TINTS

interesting phenomena of August. The finest
patches of it grow on waste strips or selvages of
land at the base of dry hills, just above the edge
of the meadows, where the greedy mower does
not deign to swing his scythe ; for this is a thin
and poor grass, beneath his notice. Or, it may
be, because it is so beautiful he does not know
that it exists ; for the same eye does not see this
and Timothy. He carefully gets the meadow
hay and the more nutritious grasses which grow
next to that, but he leaves this fine purple mist
for the walker's harvest, — fodder for his fancy
stock. Higher up the hill, perchance, grow also
Blackberries, John's - Wort, and neglected,
withered, and wiry June-Grass. How fortunate
that it grows in such places, and not in the
midst of the rank grasses which are annually
cut! Nature thus keeps use and beauty distinct.
I know many such localities, where it does not
fail to present itself annually, and paint the
earth with its blush. It grows on the gentle
slopes, either in a continuous patch or in scat-
tered and rounded tufts a foot in diameter, and
it lasts till it is killed by the first smart frosts.

In most plants the corolla or calyx is the
part which attains the highest color, and is the
most attractive ; in many it is the seed-vessel or
fruit; in others, as the Red Maple, the leaves;
and in others still it is the very culm itself
which is the principal flower or blooming part.

AUTUMNAL TINTS 311

The last is especially the case with the Poke
or Garget (Phytolacca decandrcb). Some which
stand under our cliffs quite dazzle me with their
purple stems now and early in September. They
are as interesting to me as most flowers, and
one of the most important fruits of our autumn.
Every part is flower (or fruit), such is its super-
fluity of color, — stem, branch, peduncle, pedi-
cel, petiole, and even the at length yellowish
purple-veined leaves. Its cylindrical racemes of
berries of various hues, from green to dark pur-
ple, six ot seven inches long, are gracefully
drooping on all sides, offering repasts to the
birds ; and even the sepals from which the birds
have picked the berries are a brilliant lake-red,
with crimson flame-like reflections, equal to any-
thing of the kind, — all on fire with ripeness.
Hence the lacca^ from lac^ lake. There are at
the same time flower-buds, flowers, green berries,
dark purple or ripe ones, and these flower-like
sepals, all on the same plant.

We love to see any redness in the vegetation
of the temperate zone. It is the color of colors.
This plant speaks to oiur blood. It asks a
bright sun on it to make it show to best advan-
tage, and it must be seen at this season of the
year. On warm hillsides its stems are ripe by
the twenty-third of August. At that date I
walked through a beautiful grove of them, six or

312 AUTUMNAL TINTS

seven feet high, on the side of one of our cliffs,
where they ripen early. Quite to the ground
they were a deep, brilliant purple, with a bloom
contrasting with the still clear green leaves. It
appears a rare triumph of Nature to have pro-
duced and perfected such a plant, as if this were
enough for a summer. What a perfect matu-
rity it arrives at ! It is the emblem of a success-
ful life concluded by a death not premature,
which is an ornament to Nature. What if we
were to mature as perfectly, root and branch,
glowing in the midst of our decay, like the
Poke! I confess that it excites me to behold
them. I cut one for a cane, for I would fain
handle and lean on it. I love to press the ber-
ries between my fingers, and see their juice
staining my hand. To walk amid these upright,
branching casks of purple wine, which retain
and diffuse a sunset glow, tasting each one with
your eye, instead of counting the pipes on a
London dock, what a privilege 1 For Nature's
vintage is not confined to the vine. Our poets
have sung of wine, the product of a foreign
plant which commonly they never saw, as if our
own plants had no juice in them more than the
singers. Indeed, this has been called by some
the American Grape, and, though a native of
America, its juices are used in some foreign
coimtries to improve the color of the wine ; so

AUTUMNAL TINTS 313

that the poetaster may be celebrating the virtues
of the Poke without knowing it. Here are ber-
ries enough to paint afresh the western sky, and
play the bacchanal with, if you will. And what
flutes its ensanguined stems would make, to be
used in such a dance I It is truly a royal plant.
I could spend the evening of the year musing
amid the Poke -stems. And perchance amid
these groves might arise at last a new school of
philosophy or poetry. It lasts all through Sep-
tember.

At the same time with this, or near the end
of August, a to me very interesting genus of
grasses, Andropogons, or Beai^-Gra^ses, is in
its prime : Andropogonfurcatus^ Forked Beard-
Grass, or call it Purple-Fingered Grass; An-
dropogon scoparius^ Purple Wood-Grass; and
Andropogon (now called Sorghum) nutans^ In-
dian-Grass. The first is a very tall and slen-
der-culmed grass, three to seven feet high, with
four or five purple finger-like spikes raying up-
ward from the top. The second is also quite
slender, growing in tufts two feet high by one
wide, with culms often somewhat curving, which,
as the spikes go out of bloom, have a whitish
fuzzy look. These two are prevailing grasses at
this season on dry and sandy fields and hillsides.
The culms of both, not to mention their pretty
flowers, reflect a purple tinge, and help to de-

314 AUTUMNAL TINTS

clare the ripeness of the year. Perhaps I have
the more sympathy with them because they are
despised by the farmer, and occupy sterile and
neglected soil. They are high-colored, like ripe
grapes, and express a maturity which the spring
did not suggest. Only the August sun could
have thus burnished these culms and leaves.
The farmer has long since done his upland hay-
ing, and he will not condescend to bring his
scythe to where these slender wild grasses have
at length flowered thinly ; you often see spaces
of bare sand amid them. But I walk encour-
aged between the tufts of Purple Wood-Grass
over the sandy fields, and along the edge of the
Shrub- Oaks, glad to recognize these simple con-
temporaries. With thoughts cutting a broad
swathe I "get" them, with horse - raking
thoughts I gather them into windrows. The
fine-eared poet may hear the whetting of my
scythe. These two were almost the first grasses
that I learned to distinguish, for I had not
known by how many friends I was surrounded;
I had seen them simply as grasses standing. The
purple of their culms also excites me like that
of the Poke- Weed stems.

Think what refuge there is for one, before
August is over, from college conunencements
and society that isolates ! I can skulk amid the
tufts of Purple Wood-Grass on the borders of

AUTUMNAL TINTS 315

the "Great Fields." Wherever I walk these
afternoons, the Purple - Fingered Grass also
stands like a guide - board, and points my
thoughts to more poetic paths than they have
lately 'traveled.

A man shall perhaps rush by and trample
down plants as high as his head, and cannot be
said to know that they exist, though he may
have cut many tons of them, littered his stables
with them, and fed them to his cattle for years.
Yet, if he ever favorably attends to them, he
may be overcome by their beauty. Each hum-
blest plant, or weed, as we caU it, stands there
to express some thought or mood of ours ; and
yet how long it stands in vain ! I had walked
over those Great Fields so many Augusts, and
never yet distinctly recognized these purple com-
panions that I had there. I had brushed against
them and trodden on them, forsooth ; and now,
at last, they, as it were, rose up and blessed me.
Beauty and true wealth are always thus cheap
and despised. Heaven might be defined as the
place which men avoid. Who can doubt that
these grasses, which the farmer says are of no
account to him, find some compensation in your
appreciation of them? I may say that I never
saw them before; though, when I came to look
them face to face, there did come down to me
a purple gleam from previous years ; and now,

316 AUTUMNAL TINTS

wherever I go, I see hardly anything else. It is
the reign and presidency of the Andropogons.

Almost the very sands confess the ripening
influence of the August sun, and methinks, to-
gether with the slender grasses waving over
them, reflect a purple tinge. The impurpled
sands ! Such is the consequence of all this sun-
shine absorbed into the pores of plants and of
the earth. All sap or blood is now wine-colored.
At last we have not only the purple sea, but the
purple land.

The Chestnut Beard-Grass, Indian-Grass, or
Wood-Grass, growing here and there in waste
places, but more rare than the former (from two
to four or five feet high), is still handsomer and
of more vivid colors than its congeners, and
might well have caught the Indian's eye. It
has a long, narrow, one - sided, and slightly
nodding panicle of bright purple and yellow
flowers, like a banner raised above its reedy
leaves. These bright standards are now ad-
vanced on the distant hillsides, not in large
armies, but in scattered troops or single file,
like the red men. They stand thus fair and
bright, representative of the race which they
are named after, but for the most part unob-
served as they. The expression of this grass
haimted me for a week, after I first passed and
noticed it, like the glance of an eye. It stands

AUTUMNAL TINTS 317

like an Indian chief taking a last look at his
favorite hunting-grounds.

THE RED MAPLE.

By the twenty-fifth of September, the Red
Maples generally are beginning to be ripe.
Some large ones have been conspicuously chang-
ing for a week, and some single trees are now
very brilliant. I notice a small one, half a mile
off across a meadow, against the green wood-
side there, a far brighter red than the blossoms
of any tree in summer, and more conspicuous.
I have observed this tree for several autimms
invariably changing earlier than its feUows, just
as one tree ripens its fruit earlier than another.
It might serve to mark the season, perhaps. I
should be sorry, if it were cut down. • I know
of two or three such trees in different parts of
our town, which might, perhaps, be propagated
from, as early ripeners or September trees, and
their seed be advertised in the market, as well
as that of radishes, if we cared as much about
them.

At present these burning bushes stand chiefly
along the edge of the meadows, or I distinguish
them afar on the hillsides here and there.
Sometimes you will see many small ones in a
swamp turned quite crimson when all other
trees around are still perfectly green, and the

318 AUTUMNAL TINTS

former appear so much the brighter for it.
They take you by surprise, as you are going by
on one side, across the fields, thus early in the
season, as if it were some gay encampment of
the red men, or other foresters, of whose arrival
you had not heard.

Some single trees, wholly bright scarlet, seen
against others of their kind still freshly green,
or against evergreens, are more memorable than
, whole groves will be by and by. How beauti-
ful, when a whole tree is like one great scarlet
fruit full of ripe juices, every leaf, from lowest
limb to topmost spire, all aglow, especially if
you l^c^ toward the sun ! What more remark-
able j||^i9^!ot can there be in the landscape?
VisiM© for miles, too fair to be believed. If
such a phenomenon occurred but once, it would
be handed down hj ti*adition to posterity, and
get into the mythology at last.

The who^e tree thus ripening in advance of
its fellows attains a singular preeminence, and
sometimes maintains it for a week or two. I
am thrilled at the sight of it, bearing aloft its
scarlet standard for the regiment^^ green-dad
foresters around, and I go half a mile out of my
way to examine it. A single tree becoi]|es thus
the crowning beauty of some meadowy vaHP,^and
the expression of the whole surrounding forest
is at once more spirited for it.

AUTUMNAL TINTS 319

A small Bed Maple has grown, perchance,
far away at the head of some retired valley, a
mile from any road, unobserved. It has faith-
fully discharged the duties of a Maple there, aU
winter and summer, neglected none of its econ-
omies, but added to its stature in the virtue
which belongs to a Maple, by a steady growth
for so many months, never having gone gadding
abroad, and is nearer heaven than it was in the
spring. It has faithfully husbanded its sap,
and afforded a shelter to the wandering bird,
has long since ripened its seeds and committed
them to the winds, and has the satisfaction of
knowing, perhaps^ that a thousand little weU-
behaved Maples are already settled in life some-
where. It deserves well of Mapledom. Its
leaves have been asking it from time to time,
in a whisper, "When shall we re4d^n?" And
now, in this month of September, this month
of traveling, when men are hastening to the sea-
side, or the mountains, or the lakes, this modest
Maple, still without budging an inch, travels in
its reputation, — runs up its scarlet flag on that
hillside, w^i5h shows that it has finished its
summer's work before all other trees, and with-
draws from the contest. At the eleventh hour
of tilP year, the tree which no scrutiny could
have 'detected here when it was most industrious
is thus, by the tint of its maturity, by its very

320 AUTUMNAL TINTS

blushes, revealed at last to the careless and dis-
tant traveler, and leads his thoughts away from
the dusty road into those brave solitudes which
it inhabits. It flashes out conspicuous v^ith all
the virtue and beauty of a Maple, — Acer ru-
brum. We may now read its title, or rubric^
clear. Its virtues^ not its sins, are as scarlet.

Notwithstanding the Red Maple is the most
intense scarlet of any of our trees, the Sugar-
Maple has been the most celebrated, and Mi-
chaux in his "Sylva" does not speak of the au-
tumnal color of the former. About the second
of October, these trees, both large and small,
are most brilliant, though many are stiU green.
In "sprout-lands" they seem to vie with one
another, and ever some particular one in the
midst of the crowd will be of a peculiarly pure
scarlet, and by its more intense color attract
our eye even at a distance, and carry off the
palm. A large Red-Maple swamp, when at the
height of its change, is the most obviously bril-
liant of all tangible things, where I dwell, so
abundant is this tree with us. It varies much
both in form and color. A great many are
merely yellow; more, scarlet; others, scarlet
deepening into crimson, more red than common.
Look at yonder swamp of Maples mixe^with
Pines, at the base of a Pine-clad hill, a quarter
of a mile off, so that you get the full effect of

AUTUMNAL TINTS 821

the bright colors, without detecting the imper-
fections of the leaves, and see their yellow, scar-
let, and crimson fires, of all tints, mingled and
contrasted with the green. Some Maples are
yet green, only yellow or crimson-tipped on the
edges of their flakes, like the edges of a Ha-
zel-Nut bur ; some are whoUy brilliant scarlet,
raying out regularly and finely every way,
bilaterally, like tlie veins of a leaf; others, of
more irregular form, when I turn my head
slightly, emptying out some of its earthiness
and concealing the trunk of the tree, seem to
rest heavily flake on flake, like yeUow and scar-
let clouds, wreath upon wreath, or like snow-
drifts driving through the air, stratified by the
wind. It adds greatly to the beauty of such a
swamp at this season, that, even though there
may be no other trees interspersed, it is not seen
as a simple mass of color, but, different trees
being of different colors and hues, the outline
of each crescent tree-top is distinct, and where
one laps on to another. Yet a painter would
hardly venture to make them thus distinct a
quarter of a mile off.

As I go across a meadow directly toward a
low rising ground this bright afternoon, I see,
somQ fifty rods off toward the sun, the top of a
Maple swamp just appearing over the sheeny
russet edge of the hill, a stripe apparently

322 AUTUMNAL TINTS

twenty rods long by ten feet deep, of the most
intensely brilliant scarlet, orange, and yellow,
equal to any flowers or fruits, or any tints ever
painted. As I advance, lowering the edge of
the hiU which makes the firm foreground or
lower frame of the picture, the depth of the
brilliant grove revealed steadily increases, sug-
gesting that the whole of the inclosed valley is
fiUed with such color. One wonders that the
tithing-men and fathers of the town are not out
to see what the trees mean by their high colors
and exuberance of spirits, fearing that some
mischief is brewing. I do not see what the
Puritans did at this season, when the Maples
blaze out in scarlet. They certainly could not
have worshiped in groves then. Perhaps that
is what they built meeting-houses and fenced
them round with horse-sheds for.

THE ELM.

Now too, the first of October, or later,
the Elms are at the height of their autumnal
beauty, — great brownish yellow masses, warm
from their September oven, hanging over the
highway. Their leaves are perfectly ripe. I
wonder if there is any answering ripeness in the
lives of the men who live beneath them. As I
look down our street, which is lined with them,
they remind me both by their form and color of

AUTUMNAL TINTS 323

yellowing sheaves of grain, as if the harvest had
indeed come to the village itself, and we might
expect to find some maturity and flavor in the
thoughts of the villagers at last. Under those
bright rustling yellow piles just ready to fall on
the heads of the walkers, how can any crudity
or greenness of thought or act prevail? When
I stand where half a dozen large Elms droop
over a house, it is as if I stood within a ripe
pumpkin-rind, and I feel as mellow as if I were
the pulp, though I may be somewhat stringy
and seedy withal. What is the late greenness
of the English Elm, like a cucumber out of sea-
son, which does not know when to have done,
compared with the early and golden maturity of
the American tree ? The street is the scene of a
great harvest-home. It would be worth the
while to set out these trees, if only for their au-
tumnal value. Think of these great yeUow
canopies or parasols held over our heads and
houses by the mile together, making the village
aU one and compact, — an vlmarium^ which is
at the same time a nursery of men I And then
how gently and unobserved they drop their bur-
den and let in the sun when it is wanted, their
leaves not heard when they faU on our roofs
and in our streets; and thus the viUage parasol
is shut up and put away I I see the market-
man driving into the village, and disappear-

824 AUTUMNAL TINTS

ing under its canopy of Elm-tops, with his crop,
as into a gneat granary or barn-yard. I am
tempted to go thither as to a husking of
thoughts, now dry and ripe, and ready to be
separated from their integuments ; but, alas ! I
foresee that it will be chiefly husks and little
thought, blasted pig-corn, fit only for cob-meal,
— for, as you sow, so shall you reap.

FALLEN LEAVES.

By the sixth of October the leaves generally
begin to fall, in successive showers, after frost
or rain; but the principal leaf -harvest, the acme
of the Fall^ is commonly about the sixteenth.
Some morning at that date there is perhaps a
harder frost than we have seen, and ice formed
under the pump, and now, when the mornmg
wind rises, the leaves come down in denser
showers than ever. They suddenly form thick
beds or carpets on the ground, in this gentle air,
or even without wind, just the size and form of
the tree above. Some trees, as small Hickories,
appear to have dropped their leaves instanta-
neously, as a soldier grounds arms at a signal;
and those of the Hickory, being bright yellow
stiU, though withered, reflect a blaze of light
from the ground where they lie. Down they
have come on all sides, at the first earnest touch
of autunm's wand, making a sound like rain.

AUTUMNAL TINTS 326

Op else it is after moist and rainy weather
that we notice how great a fall of leaves there
has been in the night, though it may not yet
be the touch that loosens the Eock-Maple leaf.
The streets are thickly strewn with the trophies,
and fallen Elm-leaves make a dark brown pave-
ment under our feet. After some remarkably
warm Indian-summer day or days, I perceive
that it is the unusual heat which, more than
anything, causes the leaves to fall, there having
been, perhaps, no frost nor rain for some time.
The intense heat suddenly ripens and wilts
them, just as it softens and ripens peaches and
other fruits, and causes them to drop.

The leaves of late Ked Maples, stiU bright,
strew the earth, often crimson-spotted on a yel-
low ground, like some wild apples, — though
they preserve these bright colors on the ground
but a day or two, especially if it rains. On
causeways I go by trees here and there all bare
and smoke-like, having lost their brilliant cloth-
ing; but there it lies, nearly as bright as ever
on the ground on one side, and making nearly
as regular a figure as lately on the tree. I
would rather say that I first observe the trees
thus flat on the ground like a permanent colored
shadow, and they suggest to look for the boughs
that bore them. A queen might be proud to
walk where these gallant trees have spread their

826 AUTUMNAL TINTS

bright cloaks in the mnd. I see wagons roll
over them as a shadow or a reflection, and the
drivers heed them just as little as they did their
shadows before.

Birds' -nests, in the Huckleberry and other
shrubs, and in trees, are already being filled
with the withered leaves. So many have fallen
in the woods that a squirrel cannot run after a
falling nut without being heard. Boys are rak-
ing them in the streets, if only for the pleasure
of dealing with such clean crisp substances.
Some sweep the paths scrupulously neat, and
then stand to see the next breath strew them
with new trophies. The swamp-floor is thickly
covered, and the Lycopodium luddvluTn looks
suddenly greener amid them. In dense woods
they half cover pools that are three or four rods
long. The other day I could hardly find a well-
known spring, and even suspected that it had
dried up, for it was completely concealed by
freshly fallen leaves; and when I swept them
aside and revealed it, it was like striking the
earth, with Aaron's rod, for a new spring.
Wet grounds about the edges of swamps look
dry with them. At one swamp, where I was
surveying, thinking to step on a leafy shore
from a rail, I got into the water more than a
foot deep.

When I go to the river the day after the

AUTUMNAL TINTS 327

principal faU of leaves, the sixteenth, I find my
boat all covered, bottom and seats, with the
leaves of the Golden Willow under which it is
moored, and I set sail with a cargo of them
rustling under my feet. If I empty it, it will
be full again to-morrow. I do not regard them
as litter, to be swept out, but accept them as
suitable straw or matting for the bottom of my
carriage. When I turn up into the mouth of
the Assabet, which is wooded, large fleets of
leaves are floating on its surface, as it were get-
ting out to sea, with room to tack; but next the
shore, a little farther up, they are thicker than
foam, quite concealing the water for a rod in
width, under and amid the Alders, Button-
Bushes, and Maples, stiU perfectly light and
dry, with fibre unrelaxed ; and at a rocky bend
where they are met and stopped by the morning
wind, they sometimes form a broad and dense
crescent quite across the river. When I turn
my prow that way, and the wave which it makes
strikes them, list what a pleasant rustling from
these dry substances getting on one another I
Often it is their undulation only which reveals
the water beneath them. Also every motion of
the wood-turtle on the shore is betrayed by their
rustling there. Or even in mid-channel, when
the wind rises, I hear them blown with a rus-
tling sound. Higher up they are slowly moving

328 AUTUMNAL TINTS

round and round in some great eddy which the
river makes, as that at the "Leaning Hemlocks,"
where the water is deep, and the current is
wearing into the bank.

Perchance, in the afternoon of such a day,
when the water is perfectly calm and full of re-
flections, I paddle gently down the main stream,
and, turning up the Assabet, reach a quiet
cove, where I unexpectedly find myself sur-
rounded by myriads of leaves, like fellow-voy-
agers, which seem to have the same purpose, or
want of purpose, with myself. See this great
fleet of scattered leaf-boats which we paddle
amid, in this smooth river-bay, each one curled
up on every side by the sun's skill, each nerve
a stiff spruce-knee, — like boats of hide, and of
aU patterns, Charon's boat probably among the
rest, and some with lofty prows and poops, like
the stately vessels of the ancients, scarcely mov-
ing in the sluggish current, — like the great
fleets, the dense Chinese cities of boats, with
which you mingle on entering some great mart,
some New York or Canton, which we are all
steadily approaching together. How gently
each has been deposited on the water ! No vio-
lence has been used towards them yet, though,
perchance, palpitating hearts were present at
the launching. And painted ducks, too, the
splendid wood-duck among the rest, often come

AUTUMNAL TINTS 329

to sail and float amid the painted leaves, •^—
barks of a nobler model still I

What wholesome herb-drinks are to be had
in the swamps now! What strong medicinal,
but rich scents from the decaying leaves I The
rain falling on the freshly dried herbs and
leaves, and filling the pools and ditches into
which they have dropped thus clean and rigid,
will soon convert them into tea, — green, black,
brown, and yellow teas, of all degrees of
strength, enough to set aU Nature a-gossiping.
Whether we drink them or not, as yet, before
their strength is drawn, these leaves, dried on
great Nature's coppers, are of such various pure
and delicate tints as might make the fame of
Oriental teas.

How they are mixed up, of all species, Oak
and Maple and Chestnut and Birch I But Na-
ture is not cluttered with them; she is a perfect
husbandman; she stores them aU. Consider
what a vast crop is thus annually shed on the
earth I This, more than any mere grain or seed,
is the great harvest of the year. The trees are
now repaying the earth with interest what they
have taken from it. They are discounting.
They are about to add a leaf's thickness to the
depth of the soil. This is the beautiful way in
which Nature gets her muck, while I chafiEer
with this man and that, who talks to me about

330 AUTUMNAL TINTS

sulphur and the cost of carting. We are all
the richer for their decay. I am more inter-
ested in this crop than in the English grass
alone or in the com. It prepares the virgin
mould for future cornfields and forests, on which
the earth fattens. It keeps our homestead in
good heart.

For beautiful variety no crop can be com-
pared with this. Here is not merely the plain
yeUow of the grains, but nearly all the colors
that we know, the brightest blue not excepted:
the early blushing Maple, the Poison-Sumach
blazing its sins as scarlet, the mulberry Ash,
the rich chrome yeUow of the Poplars, the bril-
liant red Huckleberry, with which the hills'
backs are painted, like those of sheep. The
frost touches them, and, with the slightest
breath of returning day or jarring of earth's
axle, see in what showers they come floating
down! The ground is all party-colored with
them. But they still live in the soil, whose
fertility and bulk they increase, and in the
forests that spring from it. They stoop to rise,
to mount higher in coming years, by subtle
chemistry, climbing by thei sap in the trees, and
the sapling's first fruits thus shed, transmuted
at last, may adorn its crown, when, in after-
years, it has become the monarch of the forest.

It is pleasant to walk over the beds of these

AUTUMNAL TINTS S31

fresh, crisp, and rustling leaves. How beauti-
fully they go to their graves! how gently lay
themselves down and turn to mould ! — painted
of a thousand hues, and fit to make the beds of
us living. So they troop to their last resting-
place, light and frisky. They put on no weeds,
but merrily they go scampering over the earth,
selecting the spot, choosing a lot, ordering no
iron fence, whispering all through the woods
about it, — some choosing the spot where the
bodies of men are mouldering beneath, aad
meeting them half-way. How many flutterings
before they rest quietly in their graves! They
that soared so loftily, how contentedly they re-
turn to dust again, and are laid low, resigned
to lie and decay at the foot of the tree, and
afford nourishment to new generations of their
kind, as well as to flutter on high I They teach
us how to die. One wonders if the time will
ever come when men, with their boasted faith
in immortality, wiU lie down as gracefully and
as ripe, — with such an Indian-summer serenity
will shed their bodies, as they do their hair and
nails.

When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a
cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander
and muse over them in their graves. Here are
no lying nor vain epitaphs. What though you
own no lot at Mount Auburn? Your lot is

832 AUTUMNAL TINTS

surely cast somewhere in this vast cemetery,
which has been consecrated from of old. You
need attend no auction to secure a place. There
is room enough here. The Loose-strife shall
bloom and the Huckleberry-bird sing over your
bones. The woodman and hunter shall be your
sextons, and the children shall tread upon the
borders as much as they will. Let us walk in
the cemetery of the leaves, — this is your true
Greenwood Cemetery.

THE SUGAR-MAPLE.

But think not that the splendor of the year
is over; for as one leaf does not make a sum-
mer, neither does one falling leaf make an
autumn. The smallest Sugar-Maples in our
streets make a great show as early as the fifth
of October, more than any other trees there.
As I look up the Main Street, they appear like
painted screens standing before the houses ; yet
many are green. But now, or generally by the
seventeenth of October, when almost all Ked
Maples, and some White Maples, are bare, the
large Sugar-Maples also are in their glory,
glowing with yellow and red, and show unex-
pectedly bright and delicate tints. They are
remarkable for the contrast they often a£Eord of
deep blushing red on one half and green on the
other. They become at length dense masses of

AUTUMNAL TINTS 333

rich yellow with a deep scarlet blush, or more
than blush, on the exposed surfaces. They are
the brightest trees now in the street.

The large ones on our Common are particu-
larly beautiful. A delicate, but warmer than
golden yellow is now the prevailing color, with
scarlet cheeks. Yet, standing on the east side
of the Common just before sundown, when the
western light is transmitted through them, I see
that their yellow even, compared with the pale
lemon yellow of an Elm close by, amounts to a
scarlet, without noticing the bright scarlet por-
tions. Generally, they are great regular oval
masses of yellow and scarlet. All the sunny
warmth of the season, the Indian-smnmer, seems
to be absorbed in their leaves. The lowest and
inmost leaves next the bole are, as usual, of the
most delicate yellow and green, like the com-
plexion of young men brought up in the house.
There is an auction on the Common to-day, but
its red flag is hard to be discerned amid this
blaze of color.

Little did the fathers of the town anticipate
this brilliant success, when they caused to be
imported from farther in the country some
straight poles with their tops cut off, which they
called Sugar-Maples ; and, as I remember, after
they were set out, a neighboring merchant's
clerk, by way of jest, planted beans about them.

884 AUTUMNAL TINTS

Those which were then jestingly called bean-
poles are to-day far the most beautiful objects
noticeable in our streets. They are worth all
and more than they have cost, — though one of
the selectmen, while setting them out, took the
cold which occasioned his death, — if only be-
cause they have filled the open eyes of children
with their rich color unstintedly so many Octo-
bers. We will not ask them to yield us sugar
in the spring, while they afford us so fair a
prospect in the autumn. Wealth indoors may
be the inheritance of few, but it is equally dis-
tributed on the Common. All children alike
can revel in this golden harvest.

Surely trees should be set in our streets with
a view to their October splendor; though I
doubt whether this is ever considered by the
"Tree Society." Do you not think it will make
some odds to these children that they were
brought up under the Maples? Hundreds of
eyes are steadily drinking in this color, and by
these teachers even the truants are caught and
educated the moment they step abroad. Indeed
neither the truant nor the studious is at present
taught color in the schools. These are instead
of the bright colors in apothecaries' shops and
city windows. It is a pity that we have no
more Red Maples, and some Hickories, in our
streets as well. Our paint*box is very imper-

AUTUMNAL TINTS 335

fectly filled. Instead of, or beside, supplying
such paint-boxes as we do, we might supply
these natural colors to the young. Where else
will they study color under greater advantages?
What School of Design can vie with this?
Think how much the eyes of painters of all
kinds, and of manufacturers of cloth and paper,
and paper-stainers, and countless others, are to
be educated by these autumnal colors. The
stationer's envelopes may be of very various
tints, yet not so various as those of the leaves
of a single tree. If you want a different shade
or tint of a particular color, you have only to
look farther within or without the tree or the
wood. These leaves are not many dipped in
one dye, as at the dye-house, but they are dyed
in light of infinitely various degrees of strength,
and left to set and dry there.

Shall the names of so many of our colors con-
tinue to be derived from those of obscure for-
eign localities, as Naples yellow, Prussian blue,
raw Sienna, burnt Umber, Gamboge? — (surely
the Tyrian purple must have faded by this
time), — or from comparatively trivial articles
of commerce, — chocolate, lemon, coffee, cinna-
mon, claret? — (shall we compare our Hickory
to a lemon, or a lemon to a Hickory?) — or
from ores and oxides which few ever see?
Shall we so often, when describing to our neigh-

336 AUTUMNAL TINTS

bors the color of something we have seen, refer
them, not to some natural object in our neigh-
borhood, but perchance to a bit of earth fetched
from the other side of the planet, which possi-
bly they may find at the apothecary's, but which
probably neither they nor we ev^r saw? Have
we not an earth under our feet, — aye, and a sky
over our heads? Or is the last all ultramarine?
What do we know of sapphire, amethyst, emer-
ald, ruby, amber, and the like, — most of us
who take these names in vain? Leave these
precious words to cabinet keepers, virtuosos,
and maids-of -honor, — to the Nabobs, Begums,
and Chobdars of Hindostan, or wherever else.
I do not see why, since America and her autumn
woods have been discovered, our leaves should
not compete with the precious stones in giving
names to colors ; and, indeed, I believe that in
course of time the names of some of our trees
and shrubs, as well as flowers, will get into our
popular chromatic nomenclature.

But of much more importance than a know-
ledge of the names and distinctions of color is
the joy and exhilaration which these colored
leaves excite. Already these brilliant trees
throughout the street, without any more variety,
are at least equal to an annual festival and holi-
day, or a week of such. These are cheap and
innocent gala-days, celebrated by one and all

AUTUMNAL TINTS 387

without the aid of committees or marshals, such
a show as may safely be licensed^ not attracting
gamblers or rum -sellers, not requiring any
special police to keep the peace. And poor
indeed must be that New -England village's
October which has not the Maple in its streets.
This October festival costs no powder, nor ring-
ing of bells, but every tree is a living liberty-
pole on which a thousand bright flags are wav-
ing.

No wonder that we must have our annual
Cattle-Show, and Fall Training, and perhaps
CornwaUis, our September Courts, and the
like. . Nature herself holds her annual fair in
October, not only in the streets, but in every
hollow and on every hillside. When lately we
looked inia that Bed-Maple swamp all ablaze,
where the trees were clothod in their vestures of
most dazzling tints, did it not suggest a thou-
sand gypsies beneath, — a race capable of wild
delight, — or even the fabled fauns, satyrs, and
wood-nymphs come back to earth? Or was it
only a congregation of wearied wood-choppers,
or of proprietors come to inspect their lots, that
we thought of? Or, earlier still, when we pad-
dled on the river through that fine-grained Sep-
tember air, did there not appear to be some-
thing new going on under the sparkling surface
of the stream, a shaking of props, at least, so

888 AUTUMNAL TINTS

that we made Imste in order to be up in time?
Did not the rows of yellowing Willows and
Button-Bushes on each side seem like rows of
booths, under which, perhaps, some fluTiatile
egg-pop equally yellow was effervescing? Did
not all these suggest that man's spirits should
rise as high as Nature's, — should hang out
their flag, and the routine of his life be inter-
rupted by an analogous expression of joy and
hilarity?

No annual training or muster of soldiery, no
celebration with its scarfs and banners, could
import into the town a hundredth part of the
annual splendor of our October. We have
only to set the trees, or let them stand, and
Nature will find the colored drapery, — flags of
all her nations, some of whose pritate signals
hardly the botanist can read, — while we walk
under the triumphal arches of the Elms. Leave
it to Nature to appoint the days, whether the
same as in neighboring States or not, and let
the clergy read her proclamations, if they can
understand them. Behold what a brilliant
drapery is her Woodbine flag! What public-
spirited merchant, think you, has contributed
this part of the show? There is no handsomer
shingling and paint than this vine, at present
covering a whole side of some houses. I do
not believe that the Ivy necer sere is comparable

AUTUMNAL TINTS 339

to it. No wonder it has been extensively intro-
duced into London. Let us have a good many
Maples and Hickories and Scarlet Oaks, then,
I say. Blaze away! Shall that dirty roll of
bunting in the gun-house be all the colors a vil-
lage can display? A village is not complete,
unless it have these trees to mark the season in
it. They are important, like the town-clock.
A village that has them not will not be found
to work well. It has a screw loose, an essen-
tial part is wanting. Let us have Willows for
spring, Elms for summer. Maples and Wal-
nuts and Tupeloes for autumn. Evergreens for
winter, and Oaks for all seasons. What is a
gallery in a house to a gallery in the streets,
which every market-man rides through, whether
he will or not? Of course, there is not a pic-
ture-gallery in the country which would be
worth so much to us as is the western view
at sunset under the Elms of our main street.
They are the frame to a picture which is daily
painted behind them. An avenue of Elms as
large as our largest and three miles long would
seem to lead to some admirable place, though

only C were at the end of it.

A village needs these innocent stimulants of
bright and cheering prospects to keep off melan-
choly and superstition. Show me two villages,
one embowered in trees and blazing with all the

840 AUTUMNAL TINTS

glories of October, the other a merely trivial
and treeless waste, or with only a single tree or
two for suicidesi) and I shall be sure that in the
latter will be found the most starved and bigoted
religionists and the most desperate drinkers.
Every wash-tub and milk-can and gravestone
will be exposed. The inhabitants will disappear
abruptly behind their barns and houses, like
desert Arabs amid their rocks, and I shaU look
to see spears in their hands. They will be
ready to accept the most barren and forlorn
doctrine, — as that the world is speedily coming
to an end, or has already got to it, or that they
themselves are turned wrong side outward.
They will perchance crack their dry joints at
one another and call it a spiritual communica-
tion.

But to confine ourselves to the Maples.
What if we were to take half as much pains in
protecting them as we do in setting them out,

— not stupidly tie our horses to our dahlia-
stems?

What meant the fathers by establishing this
perfectly living institution before the church,

— this institution which needs no repairing nor
repainting, which is continually enlarged and
repaired by its growth? Surely they

((

Wrought in a sad sincerity ;

Themselves from God they conld not free ;

AUTUMNAL TINTS 341

Thej planted better than they knew ; —
The consciouB trees to beauty gprew."

Verily these Maples are cheap preachers,
permanently settled, which preach their half-
century, and century, aye, and century-and-a-
half sermons, with constantly increasing unction
and influence, ministering to many generations
of men; and the least we can do is to supply
them with suitable colleagues as they grow in-
firm.

THE SCARLET OAK.

Belonging to a genus which is remarkable
for the beautiful form of its leaves, I suspect
that some Scarlet-Oak leaves surpass those of
all other Oaks in the rich and wild beauty of
their outlines. I judge from an acquaintance
with twelve species, and from drawings which I
have seen of many others.

Stand under this tree and see how finely its
leaves are cut against the sky, — as it were,
only a few sharp points extending from a mid-
rib. They look like double, treble, or quadru-
ple crosses. They are far more ethereal than
the less deeply scalloped Oak-leaves. They
have so little leafy terra firma that they appear
melting away in the light, and scarcely obstruct
our view. The leaves of very young plants are,
like those of full-grown Oaks of other species,
more entire, simple, and limipish in their out-

342 AUTUMNAL TINTS

lines, but these, raised high on old trees, have
solved the leafy problem. Lifted higher and
higher, and sublimated more and more, putting
oS some earthiness and cultivating more inti-
macy with the light each year, they have at
length the least possible amoimt of earthy mat-
ter, and the greatest spread and grasp of skyey
influences. There they dance, arm in arm with
the light, — tripping it on fantastic points, fit
partners in those aerial halls. So intimately
mingled are they with it, that, what with their
slenderness and their glossy surfaces, you can
hardly tell at last what in the dance is leaf and
what is light. And when no zephyr stirs, they
are at most but a rich tracery to the forest-win-
dows.

I am again struck with their beauty, when, a
month later, they thickly strew the ground in
the woods, piled one upon another under my
feet. They are then brown above, but purple
beneath. With their narrow lobes and their
bold deep scallops reaching almost to the mid-
dle, they suggest that the material must be
cheap, or else there has been a lavish expense
in their creation, as if so much had been cut
out. Or else they seem to us the remnants of
the stuff out of which leaves have been cut with
a die. Indeed, when they lie thus one upon
another, they remind me of a pile of scrap-tin.

AUTUMNAL TINTS 343

Or bring one home, and study it closely at
your leisure, by the fireside. It is a type, not
from any Oxford font, not in the Basque nor
the arrow-headed character, not found on the
Rosetta Stone, but destined to be copied in
sculpture one day, if they ever get to whittling
stone here. What a wild and pleasing outline,
a combination of graceful curves and angles!
The eye rests with equal delight on what is not
leaf and on what is leaf, — on the broad, free,
open sinuses, and on the long, sharp, bristle-
pointed lobes. A simple oval outline would in-
clude it all, if you connected the points of the
leaf ; but how much richer is it than that, with
its half dozen deep scallops, in which the eye
and thought of the beholder are embayed 1 If
I were a drawing-master, I would set my pupiL.
to copying these leaves, that they might learn
to draw firmly and gracefully.

Regarded as water, it is like a pond with half
a dozen broad rounded promontories extending
nearly to its middle, half from each side, while
its watery bays extend far inland, like sharp
friths, at each of whose heads several fine
streams empty in, — almost a leafy archipelago.

But it oftener suggests land, and, as Diony-
sius and Pliny compared the form of the Morea
to that of the leaf of the Oriental Plane-tree,
so this leaf reminds me of some fair wild island

844 AUTUMNAL TINTS

in the ocean, whose extensive coast, alternate
rounded bays with smooth strands, and sharp-
pointed rocky capes, mark it as fitted for the
habitation of man, and destined to become a
centre of civilization at last. To the sailor's
eye, it is a much-indented shore. Is it not, in
fact, a shore to the aerial ocean, on which the
windy surf beats ? At sight of this leaf we are
all mariners, — if not vikings, buccaneers, and
filibusters. Both our love of repose and our
spirit of adventure are addressed. In our most
casual glance, perchance, we think that if we
succeed in doubling those sharp capes we shall
find deep, smooth, and secure havens in the
ample bays. How different from the White-
Oak leaf, with its rounded headlands, on which
no lighthouse need be placed! That is an Eng-
land, with its long civil history, that may be
read. This is some still imsettled New-found
Island or Celebes. Shall we go and be rajahs
there?

By the twenty-sixth of October the large
Scarlet Oaks are in their prime, when other
Oaks are usually withered. They have been
kindling their fires for a week past, and now
generally burst into a blaze. This alone of our
indigenous* deciduous trees (excepting the Dog-
wood, of which I do not know half a dozen, and
they are but large bushes) is now in its glory.

AUTUMNAL TINTS 346

The two Aspens and the Sugar-Maple come
nearest to it in date, but they have lost the
greater part of their leaves. Of evergreens,
only the Pitch-Pine is still commonly bright.

But it requires^ a particular alertness, if not
devotion to these phenomena, to appreciate the
wide-spread, but late and unexpected glory of
the Scarlet Oaks. I do not speak here of the
small trees and shrubs, which are commonly
observed, and which are now withered, but of
the large trees. Most go in and shut their
doors, thinking that bleak and colorless Novem-
ber has already come, when some of the most
brilliant and memorable colors are not yet lit.

This very perfect and vigorous one, about
forty feet high, standing in an open pasture,
which was quite glossy green on the twelfth, is
now, the twenty-sixth, completely changed to
bright dark scarlet, — every leaf, between you
and the sun, as if it had been dipped into a
scarlet dye. The whole tree is much like a
heart in form, as well as color. Was not this
worth waiting for? Little did you think, ten
days ago, that that cold green tree would as-
sume such color as this. Its leaves are still
firmly attached, while those of other trees are
falling around it. It seems to say, — "I am
the last to blush, but I blush deeper than any
of ye. I bring up the rear in my red coat*

846 AUTUMNAL TINTS

We Scarlet ones, alone of Oaks, have not given
up the fight." /

The sap is now, and even far into November,
frequently flowing fast in these trees, as in
Maples in the spring ; and apparently their
bright tints, now that most other Oaks are
withered, are connected with this phenomenon.
They are full of life. It has a pleasantly astrin-
gent, acorn-like taste, this strong Oak-wine, as
I find on tapping them with my knife.

Looking across this woodland valley, a quar-
ter of a mile wide, how rich those Scarlet Oaks
embosomed in Pines, their bright red branches
intimately intermingled with them ! They have
their full effect there. The Pine-boughs are
the green calyx to their red petals. Or, as we
go along a road in the woods, the sun striking
endwise through it, and lighting up the red
tents of the Oaks, which on each side are min-
gled with the liquid green of the Pines, makes
a very gorgeous scene. Indeed, without the
evergreens for contrast, the autumnal tints
would lose much of their effect.

The Scarlet Oak asks a clear sky and the
brightness of late October days. These bring
out its colors. If the sun goes into a cloud they
become comparatively indistinct. As I sit on
a cliff in the southwest part of our town, the
sun is now getting low, and the woods in Lin-

AUTUMNAL TINTS 347

coin, south and east of me, are lit up by its
more level rays; and in the Scarlet Oaks, scat-
tered so equally over the forest, there is brought
out a more brilliant redness than I had believed
was in them. Every tree of this species which
is visible in those directions, even to the hori-
zon, now stands out distinctly red. Some great
ones lift their red backs high above the woods,
in the next town, like huge roses with a myriad
of fine petals; and some more slender ones, in a
small grove of White Pines on Pine Hill in the
east, on the very verge of the horizon, alter-
nating with the Pines on the edge of the grove,
and shouldering them with their red coats, look
like soldiers in red amid hunters in green.
This time it is Lincoln green, too* Till the
sun got low, I did not believe that there were
so many red coats in the forest army. Theirs
is an intense burning red, which would lose
some of its strength, methinks, with every step
you might take toward them ; for the shade that
lurks amid their foliage does not report itseK at
this distance, and they are unanimously red.
The focus of their reflected color is in the atmo-
sphere far on this side. Every such tree be-
comes a nucleus of red, as it were, where, with
the declining sun, that color grows and glows.
It is partly borrowed fire, gathering strength
from the sim on its way to your eye. It has

348 AUTUMNAL TINTS

only some comparatively doll red leaves for a
rallying-point, or kindling-stuff, to start it, and
it becomes an intense scarlet or red mist, or
fire, which finds fuel for itself in the very atmo-
sphere. So vivacious is redness. The very
rails reflect a rosy light at this hour and season.
You see a redder tree than exists.

If you wish to count the Scarlet Oaks, do it
now. In a clear day stand thus on a hill-top
in the woods, when the sun is an hour high,
and every one within range of your vision, ex-
cepting in the west, will be revealed. You
might live to the age of Methuselah and never
find a tithe of them, otherwise. Yet sometimes
even in a dark day I have thought them as
bright as I ever saw them. Looking westward,
their colors are lost in a blaze of light; but in
other directions the whole forest is a flower-gar-
den, in which these late roses burn, alternating
with green, while the so-called "gardeners,"
walking here and there, perchance, beneath,
with spade and water-pot, see only a few little
asters amid withered leaves.

These are my China-asters, my late garden-
flowers. It costs me nothing for a gardener.
The falling leaves, all over the forest, are pro-
tecting the roots of my plants. Only look at
what is to be seen, and you will have garden
enough, without deepening the soil in your

AUTUMNAL TINTS 349

yard. We have only to elevate our view a lit-
tle, to see the whole forest as a garden. The
blossoming of the Scarlet Oak, — the forest-
flower, surpassing all in splendor (at least since
the Maple)! I do not know but they interest
me more than the Maples, they are so widely
and equally dispersed throughout the forest;
they are so hardy, a nobler tree on the whole ;
— our chief November flower, abiding the ap-
proach of winter with us, imparting warmth to
early November prospects. It is remarkable
that the latest bright color that is general
should be this deep, dark scarlet and red, the
intensest of colors. The ripest fruit of the
year ; like the cheek of a hard, glossy, red ap-
ple, from the cold Isle of Orleans, which will
not be mellow for eating till next spring!
When I rise to a hill-top, a thousand of these
great Oak roses, distributed on every side, as
far as the horizon ! I admire them four or five
miles off! This my unfailing prospect for a
fortnight past! This late forest-flower sur-
passes all that spring or summer could do.
Their colors were but rare and dainty specks
comparatively (created for the near-sighted,
who walk amid the humblest herbs and under-
woods), and made no impression on a distant
eye. Now it is an extended forest or a moun-
tain-side, through or along which we journey

360 AUTUMNAL TINTS

from day to day, that bursts into bloom. Com-
paratively, our gardening is on a petty scale, —
the gardener still nursing a few asters amid
dead weeds, i&:norant of the sfieantic asters and
roses which, Z it were, overshadow him, and
ask for none of his care. It is like a little red
paint ground on a saucer, and held up against
the sunset sky. Why not take more elevated
and broader views, walk in the great garden,
not skulk in a little '^ debauched" nook of it?
consider the beauty of the forest, and not
merely of a few impounded herbs ?
' Let your walks now be a little more adven-
turous; ascend the hills. If, about the last of
October, you ascend any hill in the outskirts of
our town, and probably of yours, and look over
the forest, you may see — well, what I have
endeavored to describe. All this you surely
will see, and much more, if you are prepared to
see it, — if you look for it. Otherwise, regular
and universal as this phenomenon is, whether
you stand on the hill-top or in the hollow, you
will think for threescore years and ten that all
the wood is, at this season, sere and brown.
Objects are concealed from our view, not so
much because they are out of the course of our
visual ray as because we do not bring our minds
and eyes to bear on them ; for there is no power
to see in the eye itself, any more than in any

AUTUMNAL TINTS 351

other jelly. We do not realize how far and
widely, or how near and narrowly, we are to
look. The greater part of the phenomena of
Nature are for this reason concealed from us all
our lives. The gardener sees only the gar-
dener's garden. Here, too, as in political econ-
omy, the supply answers to the demand. Na-
ture does not cast pearls before swine. There
is just as much beauty visible to us in the land-
scape as we are prepared to appreciate, — not
a grain more. The actual objects which one
man will see from a particular hill-top are just
as different from those which another will see
as the beholders are different. The Scarlet Oak
must, in a sense, be in your eye when you go
forth. We cannot see anything until we are
possessed with the idea of it, take it into our
heads, — and then we can hardly see anything
else. In my botanical rambles I find that, first,
the idea, or imae:e, of a plant occupies my
tlough.., though !. ™.y «1 ™ry foLg. ,^
this locality, — no nearer than Hudson's Bay,
— and for some weeks ownonths I go thinking
of it, and expecting it\ unconsciously, and at
length I surely see it. This is the history of
my finding a score or more of rare plants, which
I could name. A man sees only what concerns
him. A botanist absorbed in the study of
grasses does not distinguish the grandest Pas-

352 AUTUMNAL TINTS

ture Oaks. He, as it were, tramples down
Oaks unwittingly in his walk, or at most sees
only their shadows. I have found that it re-
quired a different intention of the eye, in the
same locality, to see different plants, even
when they were closely allied, as Juncacece and
GraminecB : when I was looking for the former,
I did not see the latter in the midst of them.
How much more, then, it requires different in-
tentions of the eye and of the mind to attend to
different departments of knowledge ! How dif-
ferently the poet and the naturalist look at
objects !

Take a New-England selectman, and set him
on the highest of our hills, and tell him to look,
— sharpening his sight to the utmost, and put-
ting on the glasses that suit him best (aye, using
a spy-glass, if he likes), — and make a full
report. What, probably, will he spy? — what
will he select to look at? Of course, he will
see a Brocken spectre of himself. He will see
several meeting-houses, at least, and, perhaps,
that somebody ought to be assessed higher than
he is, since he has so handsome a wood-lot.
Now take Julius Caesar, or Emanuel Sweden-
borg, or a Fiji Islander, and set him up there.
Or suppose all together, and let them compare
notes afterward. Will it appear that they have
enjoyed the same prospect? What they will

AUTUMNAL TINTS 853

see will be as different as Some was from Hea-
ven or Hell, or the last from the Fiji Islands.
For aught we know, as strange a man as any of
these is always at our elbow.

Why, it takes a sharp-shooter to bring down
even such trivial game as snipes and wood-cocks ;
he must take very particular aim, and know what
he is aiming at. He would stand a very small
chance, if he fired at random into the sky, being
told that snipes were flying there. And so is
it with him that shoots at beauty; though he
wait till the sky falls, he will not bag any, if
he does not already know its seasons and haunts,
and the color of its wing, — if he has not
dreamed of it, so that he can anticipate it;
then, indeed, he flushes it at every step, shoots
double and on the wing, with both barrels, even
in cornfields. The sportsman trains himself,
dresses and watches unweariedly, and loads and
primes for his particular game. He prays for
it, and offers sacrifices, and so he gets it. Af-
ter due and long preparation, schooling his eye
and hand, dreaming awake and asleep, with gun
and paddle and boat, he goes out after meadow-
hens, which most of his townsmen never saw
nor dreamed of, and paddles for miles against a
head-wind, and wades in water up to his knees,
being out all day without his dinner, and there-
fore he gets them. He had them half-way into

364 AUTUMNAL TINTS

his bag when he started, and has only to shove
them down. The true sportsman can shoot you
aknost any of his game from his windows : what
else has he windows or eyes for? It comes and
perches at last on the barrel of his gun; but the
rest of the world never see it with the feathers
on. The geese fly exactly under his zenith,
and honk when they get there, and he will keep
himself supplied by firing up his chinmey;
twenty musquash have the refusal of each one
of his traps before it is empty. If he lives,
and his game-spirit increases, heaven and earth
shall fail him sooner than game ; and when he
dies, he will go to more extensive and, per-
chance, happier hunting-grounds. The fisher-
man, too, dreams of fish; sees a bobbing cork
in his dreams, till he can almost catch them in
his sink-spout. I knew a girl who, being sent
to pick huckleberries, picked wild gooseberries
by the quart, where no one else knew that there
were any, because she was accustomed to pick
them up country where she came from. The
astronomer knows where to go star-gathering,
and sees one clearly in his mind before' any have
seen it with a glass. The hen scratches and
finds her food right under where she stands;
but such is not the way with the hawk.

These bright leaves which I have mentioned

AUTUMNAL TINTS 855

are not the exception, but the rule; for I be-
lieve that all leaves, even grasses and mosses,
acquire brighter colors just before their fall.
When you come to observe faithfully the
changes of each humblest plant, you find that
each has, sooner or later, its peculiar autumnal
tint; and if you undertake to make a complete
list of the bright tints, it will be nearly as long
as a catalogue of the plants in your vicinity.

WILD APPLES

THE HISTOBT OF THE AFPLE-TBEE

It is remarkable how closely the history of
the apple-tree is connected with that of man.
The geologist tells us that the order of the
MoaacecBj which includes the Apple, also the
true Grasses, and the Lahiatce^ or Mints, were
introduced only a short time previous to the
appearance of man on the globe.

It appears that apples made a part of the
food of that unknown primitive people whose
traces have lately been found at the bottom of
the Swiss lakes, supposed to be older than the
foundation of Rome, so old that they had no
metallic implements. An entire black and
shriveled Crab- Apple has been recovered from
their stores.

Tacitus says of the ancient Germans, that
they satisfied their hunger with wild apples
(agrestia poma\ among other things.

Niebuhr observes that "the words for a
house, a field, a plough, ploughing, wine, oil,
milk, sheep,^ apples, and others relating to agri-
culture and the gender way of life, agree in

WILD APPLES 867

Latin and Greek, while the Latin words for all
objects pertaining to war or the chase are ut-
terly alien from the Greek." Thus the apple-
tree may be considered a symbol of peace no
less than the olive.

The apple was early so important, and gener-
ally distributed, that its name traced to its root
in many languages signifies fruit in general.
M^Aoi', in Greek, means an apple, also the
fruit of other trees, also a sheep and any cattle,
and finally riches in general.

The apple-tree has been celebrated by the
Hebrews, Greeks, Eomans, and Scandinavians.
Some have thought that the first human pair
were tempted by its fruit. Goddesses are
fabled to have contended for it, dragons were
set to watch it, and heroes were employed to
pluck it.

The tree is mentioned in at least three places
in the Old Testament, and its fruit in two or
three more. Solomon sings, — " As the apple-
tree among the trees of the wood, so is my be-
loved among the sons." And again, — "Stay
me with flagons, comfort me with apples."
The noblest part of man's noblest feature is
named from this fruit, "the apple of the eye."

The apple-tree is also mentioned by Homer
and Herodotus. Ulysses saw in the glorious
garden of Alcinoiis 'Spears and pomegranat()s,

868 WILD APPLES

and apple-trees bearing beautiful fruit" (koL
fLYjXiai ayXaoKapTToi). And according to Homer,
apples were among the fruits which Tantalus
could not pluck, the wind ever blowing their
boughs away from him. Theophrastus knew
and described the apple-tree as a botanist.

According to the Prose Edda, "Iduna keeps
in a box the apples which the gods, when they
feel old age approaching, have only to taste of
to become young again. It is in this manner
that they will be kept in renovated youth until
Ragnarok " (or the destruction of the gods).

I learn from Loudon that ^Hhe ancient
Welsh bards were rewarded for excelling in
song by the token of the apple-spray;" and
"in the Highlands of Scotland the apple-tree
is the badge of the clan Lament."

The apple-tree (Pyrus mains) belongs chiefly
to the northern temperate zone. Loudon says
that "it grows spontaneously in every part of
Europe except the frigid zone, and throughout
Western Asia, China, and Japan." We have
also two or three varieties of the apple indige-
nous in North America. The cultivated apple-
tree was first introduced into this country by the
earliest settlers, and is thought to do as well or
better here than anywhere elser. Probably some
of the varieties which are now cultivated were
first introduced into Britain by the Romans.

WILD APPLES 359

Pliny, adopting the distinction of Theophras-
tus, says, — "Of trees there are some which'are
altogether wild (sylvestres)^ some more civilized
(urbaniores).^^ Theophrastus includes the apple
among the last; and, indeed, it is in this sense
the most civilized of all trees. It is as harmless
as a dove, as beautiful as a rose, and as val-
uable as flocks and herds. It has been longer
cultivated than any other, and so is more hu-
manized; and who knows but, like the dog, it
will at length be no longer traceable to its wild
original? It migrates with man, like the dog
and horse and cow: first, perchance, from
Greece to Italy, thence to England, thence to
America; and our Western emigrant is still
marching steadily toward the setting sun with
the seeds of the apple in his pocket, or perhaps
a few young trees strapped to his load. At
least a million apple-trees are thus set farther
westward this year than any cultivated ones
grew last year. Consider how the Blossom -
Week, like the Sabbath, is thus annually
spreading over the prairies ; for when man mi-
grates, he carries with him not only his birds,
quadrupeds, insects, vegetables, and his very
sward, but his orchard also.

The leaves and tender twigs are an agreeable
food to many domestic animals, as the cow,
horse, sheep, and goat; and the fruit is sought

860 WILD APPLES

after by the first, as well as by the hog. Thus
there appears to hare existed a natural alliance
between these animals and this tree from the
first. "The fruit of the Crab in the forests of
France " is said to be "a great resource for the
wild boar."

Not only the Indian, but many indigenous
insects, birds, and quadrupeds, welcomed the
apple-tree to these shores. The tent-caterpillar
saddled her eggs on the very first twig that was
formed, and it has since shared her affections
with the wild cherry ; and the canker-worm also
in a measure abandoned the elm to feed on it.
As it grew apace, the blue-bird, robm, cherry-
bird, king -bird, and many more came with
haste and built their nests and warbled in its
boughs, and so became orchard-birds, and mul-
tiplied more than ever. It was an era in the
history of their race. The downy woodpecker
found such a savory morsel under its bark that
he perforated it in a ring quite round the tree,
before he left it, — a thing which he had never
done before, to my knowledge. It did not take
the partridge long to find out how sweet its
buds were, and every winter eve she flew, and
still flies, from the wood, to pluck them, much
to the farmer's sorrow. The rabbit, too, was
not slow to learn the taste of its twigs and bark ;
and when the fruit was ripe, the squirrel half

WILD APPLES 361

rolled, half carried it to his hole ; and even the
musquash crept up the bank from the brook at
evening, and greedily devoured it, until he had
worn a path in the grass there; and when it
was frozen and thawed, the crow and the jay
were glad to taste it occasionally. The owl
crept into the first apple-tree that became hol-
low, and fairly hooted with delight, finding it
just the place for him; so, settling down into
it, he has remained there ever since.

My theme being the Wild Apple, I will
merely glance at some of the seasons in the an-
nual growth of the cultivated apple, and pass
on to my special province.

The flowers of the apple are perhaps the most
beautiful of any tree's, so copious and so de-
licious to both sight and scent. The walker
is frequently tempted to turn and linger near
some more than usually handsome one, whose
blossoms are two thirds expanded. How supe-
rior it is in these respects to the pear, whose
blossoms are neither colored nor fragrant !

By the middle of July, green apples are so
large as to remind us of coddling, and of the
autumn. The sward is commonly strewed with
little ones which fall still-born, as it were, —
Nature thus thinning them for us. The Roman
writer Palladius said, — "If apples are inclined
to fall before their time, a stone placed in a

862 WILD APPLES

split root will retain them." Some such notion,
still surviving, may account for some of the
stones which we see placed, to be overgrown, in
the forks of trees. They have a saying in Suf-
folk, England, —

" At Michaelmas time, or a little before,
Half an apple goes to the core."

Early apples begin to be ripe about the first
of August ; but I think that none of them are
so good to eat as some to smell. One is worth
more to scent your handkerchief with than any
perfume which they sell in the shops. The fra-
grance of some fruits is not to be forgotten,
along with that of flowers. Some gnarly apple
which I pick up in the road reminds me by its
fragrance of all the wealth of Pomona, — carry-
ing me forward to those days when they will be
collected in golden and ruddy heaps in the or-
chards and about the cider-mills.

A week or two later, as you are going by or-
chards or gardens, especially in the evenings,
you pass through a little region possessed by
the fragrance of ripe apples, and thus enjoy
them without price, and without robbing any-
body.

There is thus about all natural products a
certain volatile and ethereal quality which rep-
resents their highest value, and which cannot be
vulgarized, or bought and sold. No mortal has

WILD APPLES 363

ever enjoyed the perfect flavor of any fruit, and
only the godlike among men begin to taste its
ambrosial qualities. For nectar and ambrosia
are only those fine flavors of every earthly fruit
which our coarse palates fail to perceive, — just
as we occupy the heaven of the gods without
knowing it. When I see a particularly mean
man carrying a load of fair and fragrant early
apples to market, I seem to see a contest going
on between him and his horse, on the one side,
and the apples on the other, and, to my mind,
the apples always gain it. Pliny says that
apples are the heaviest of all things, and that
the oxen begin to sweat at the mere sight of a
load of them. Our driver begins to lose his
load the moment he tries to transport them to
where they do not belong, that is, to any but
the most beautiful. Though he gets out from
time to time, and feels of them, and thinks they
are all there, I see the stream of their evanes-
cent and celestial qualities going to heaven from
his cart^ while the pulp and skin and core only
are going to market. They are not apples, but
pomace. Are not these still Iduna's apples,
the taste of which keeps the gods forever
young? and think you that they will let Loki
or Thjassi carry them oflf to Jotunheim, while
they grow wrinkled and gray? No, for Kag-
narok, or the destruction of the gods, is not yet.

S64 WILD APPLES

There is another thinning of the fruit, com-
monly near the end of August or in September,
when the ground is strewn with windfalls; and
this happens especially when high winds occur
after rain. In some orchards you may see fully
three quarters of the whole crop on the ground,
lying in a circular form beneath the trees, yet
hard and green, -or, if it is a hillside, rolled
far down the hill. However, it is an ill wind
that blows nobody any good. All the country
over, people are busy picking up the windfalls,
and this will make them cheap for early apple-
pies.

In October, the leaves falling, the apples are
more distinct on the trees. I saw one year in
a neighboring town some trees fuller of fruit
than I remember to have ever seen before, small
yellow apples hanging over the road. The
branches were gracefully drooping with their
weight, like a barberry-bush, so that the whole
tree acquired a new character. Even the top-
most branches, instead of standing erect, spread
and drooped in all directions ; and there were
so many poles supporting the lower ones that
they looked like pictures of banian-trees. As
an old English manuscript says, ^^The mo ap-
pelen the tree bereth the more sche boweth to
the folk."

Surely the apple is the noblest of fruits.

WILD APPLES 365

Let the most beautiful or the swiftest have it.
That should be the "going" price of apples.

Between the 5th and 20th of October I see
the barrels lie under the trees. And perhaps
I talk with one who is selecting some choice
barrels to fulfill an order. He turns a specked
one over many times before he leaves it out. If
I were to tell what is passing in my mind, I
should say that every one was specked which
he had handled ; for he rubs off all the bloom,
and those fuga^^ious ethereal qualities leave it.
Cool evenings prompt the farmers to make haste,
and at length I see only the ladders here and
there left leaning against the trees.

It would be weD, if we accepted these gifts
with more joy and gratitude, and did not think
it enough simply to put a fresh load of compost
about the tree. Some old English customs are
suggestive at least. I find them described
chiefly in Brand's "Popular Antiquities." It
appears that "on Christmas Eve the farmers
and their men in Devonshire take a large bowl
of cider, with a toast in it, and carrying it in
state to the orchard, they salute the apple-trees
with much ceremony, in order to make them
bear well the next season." This salutation
consists in "throwing some of the cider about
the roots of the tree, placing bits of the toast on
the branches," and then, "encircling one of the

366 WILD APPLES

best bearing trees in the orchard, they drink
the following toast three several times : —

* Here 's to thee, old apple-tree,
Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayat blow,
And whence thon mayst bear apples enow I

Hat»-full! caps-fuU!

Bushel, bushel, sacks-full I

And my pockets full, too I Hurra ! ' "

Also what was called "apple-howling" used
to be practiced in various counties of England
on New Year's Eve. A troop of boys visited
the different orchards, and, encircling the ap-
ple-trees, repeated the following words : —

"Stand fast, root ! bear well, top I
Pray Grod send us a good howling crop :
Every twig, apples big ;
Every bow, apples enow I "

"They then shout in chorus, one of the boys
accompanying them on a cow's horn. During
this ceremony they rap the trees with their
sticks." This is called "wassailing" the trees,
and is thought by some to be "a relic of the
heathen sacrifice to Pomona."
Herrick sings, —

*^ Wassaile the trees that they may beare
Tou many a plum and many a peare ;
For more or less fruits they will bring
As you so g^ve them wassailing."

Our poets have as yet a better right to sing
of cider than of wine ; but it behooves them to

WILD APPLES 367

sing better than English Phillips did, else they
will do no credit to their Muse.

THE WILD APPLE.

So much for the more civilized apple-trees
(urhaniores^ as Pliny calls them). I love better
to go through the old orchards of ungraf ted ap-
ple-trees, at whatever season of the year, — so
irregularly planted : som^imes two trees stand-
ing close together; and the rows so devious that
you would think that they not only had grown
while the owner was sleeping, but had been set
out by him in a somnambulic state. The rows
of grafted fruit will never tempt me to wander
amid them like these. But I now, alas, speak
rather from memory than from any recent ex-
perience, such ravages have been made !

Some soils, like a rocky tract called the Eas-
terbrooks Country in my neighborhood, are so
suited to the apple, that it will grow faster in
them without any care, or if only the ground is
broken up once a year, than it will in many
places with any amount of care. The owners
of this tract allow that the soil is excellent for
fruit, but they say that it is so rocky that they
have not patience to plough it, and that, to-
gether with the distance, is the reason why it is
not cultivated. There are, or were recently,
extensive orchards there standing without or-

868 WILD APPLES

der. Nay, they spring up wild and bear well
there in the midst of pines, birches, maples,
and oaks. I am often surprised to see rising
amid these trees the rounded tops of apple-trees
glowing with red or yellow fruit, in harmony
with the autumnal tints of the forest.

Going up the side of a cliff about the first of
November, I saw a vigorous young apple-tree,
IJ I which, planted by birds or cows, had shot up
amid the rocks and open woods there, and had
now much fruit on it, uninjured by the frosts,
when all cultivated apples were gathered. It
was a rank wild growth, with many green leaves
on it stm, and made an impression of thomi-
ness. The fruit was hard and green, but looked
as if it would be palatable in the winter. Some
was dangling on the twigs, but more half bur-
ied in the wet leaves imder the tree, or rolled
far down the hill amid the rocks. The owner
knows nothing of it. The day was not observed
when it first blossomed, nor when it first bore
fruit, unless by the chickadee. There was no
dancing on the green beneath it in its honor,
and now there is no hand to pluck its fruit, —
which is only gnawed by squirrels, as I per-
ceive. It has done double duty, — not only
borne this crop, but each twig has grown a foot
into the air. And this is such fruit! bigger
than many berries, we must admit, and carried

WILD APPLES 869

home will be sound and palatable next spring.
What care I for Iduna's apples so long as I
can get these?

When I go by this shrub thus late and hardy,
and see its dangling fruit, I respect the tree,
and I am grateful for Nature's bounty, even
though I cannot eat it. Here on this rugged
and woody hillside has grown an apple - tree,
not planted by man, no relic of a former or-
chard, but a natural growth, like the pines and
oaks. Most fruits which we prize and use de-
pend entirely on our care. Com and grain,
potatoes, peaches, melons, etc., depend alto-
gether on our planting; but the apple emulates
man's independence and enterprise. It is not
simply carried, as I have said, but, like him, to
some extent, it has migrated to this New World,
and is even, here and there, making its way
amid the aboriginal trees; just as the ox and
dog and horse sometimes run wild and main-
tain themselves.

Even the sourest and crabbedest apple, grow-
ing in the most unfavorable position, suggests
such thoughts as these, it is so noble a fruit.

THE CBAB.

Nevertheless, oiir wild apple is wild only
like myself, perchance, who belong not to the
aboriginal race here, but have strayed into the

370 WILD APPLES

woods from the cultivated stock. Wilder still,
as I have said, there grows elsewhere in this
country a native and aboriginal Crab-Apple,
Malus coronaria^ "whose nature has not yet
V* been modified by cultivation." It is found
from Western New York to Minnesota, and
southward. Michaux says that its ordinary
height "is fifteen or eighteen feet, but it is
sometimes found twenty-five or thirty feet
high," and that the large ones "exactly resem-
ble the common apple-tree." "The flowers are
white mingled with rose color, and are collected
in corymbs." They are remarkable for their
delicious odor. The fruit, according to him, is
about an inch and a half in diameter, and is in-
tensely acid. Yet they make fine sweetmeats
and also cider of them. He concludes that "if,
on being cultivated, it does not yield new and
palatable varieties, it will at least be celebrated
for the beauty of its flowers, and for the sweet-
ness of its perfume."

I never saw the Crab-Apple till May, 1861.
I had heard of it through Michaux, but more
modern botanists, so far as I know, have not
treated it as of any peculiar importance. Thus
it was a half-fabulous tree to me. I contem-
plated a pilgrimage to the "Glades," a portion
of Pennsylvania where it was said to grow to
perfection. I thought of sending to a nursery

[

WILD APPLES 371

for it, but doubted if they had it, or would dis-
tinguish it from European varieties. At last I
had occasion to go to Minnesota, and on enter-
ing Michigan I began to notice from the cars a
tree with handsome rose-colored flowers. At
first I thought it some variety of thorn ; but it
was not long before the truth flashed on me,
that this was my long-sought Crab-Apple. It
was the prevailing flowering shrub or tree to be
seen from the cars at that season of the year, —
about the middle of May. But the cars never
stopped before one, and so I was launched on
the bosom of the Mississippi without having
touched one, experiencing the fate of Tantalus. '/
On arriving at St. Anthony's Falls, I was sorry
to be told that I was too far north for the Crab-
Apple. Nevertheless I succeeded in finding it
about eight miles west of the Falls ; touched it
and smeUed it, and secured a lingering corymb
of flowers for my herbarium. This must have
been near its northern limit.

HOW THE WILD APPLE GROWS.

But though these are indigenous, like the
Indians, I doubt whether they are any hardier
than those backwoodsmen among the apple-
trees, which, though descended from cultivated
stocks, plant themselves in distant fields and
forests^ where the soil is favorable to them. I

372 WILD APPLES

know of no trees which have more diffioultiea to
contend with, and which more sturdily resist
their foes. These are the ones whose story we
have to tell. It oftentimes reads thus: —

Near the beginning of May, we notice little
thickets of apple-trees just springing up in the
pastures where cattle have been, — as the rocky
ones of our Easterbrooks Country, or the top
of Nobscot Hill, in Sudbury: One or two of^
these perhaps survive the drought and other ac-
cidents, — their very birthplace defending them
against the encroaching grass and some other
dangers, at first.

In two years' time 't had thus
Reached the level of the rocks,

Admired the stretefaiog world,
Nor feared the wandering flocks.

Bat at this tender age

Its sufferings began :
There came a browsing ox

And cut it down a span.

This time, perhaps, the ox does not notice it
amid the grass ; but the next year, when it has
grown more stout, he recognizes it for a fellow-
emigrant from the old country, the flavor of
whose leaves and twigs he well knows; and
though at first he pauses to welcome it, and ex-
press his surprise, and gets for answer, "The
same cause that brought you here brought me,"

WILD APPLES STSL

he nevertheless browses it again, reflecting, it
may be, that he has some title to it.

Thus cut down annually, it does not despair;
but, putting jEorth two short twigs for every one*
cut off, it spreads out low along the ground in
the hollows or between the rocks, growing more
stout and scrubby, until it forms, not a tree as
yet, but a little pyramidal, stiff, twiggy mass,
^almost as solid and impenetrable as a rock.
Some of the densest and most impenetrable
clumps of bushes that I have ever seen, as well
on account of the closeness and stubbornness of
their branches as of their thorns, have been
these wild-apple scrubs. They are more like
the scrubby fir and black spruce on which you
stand, and sometimes walk, on the tops of
mountains, where cold is the demon they con-
tend with, than anything else. No wonder they
are prompted to grow thorns at last, to defend
themselves against such foes. In their thorni-
ness, however, there is no malice, only some
malic acid.

The rocky pastures of the tract I have re-
ferred to, — for they maintain their ground best
in a rocky field, — are thickly sprinkled with
these little tufts, reminding you often of some
rigid gray mosses or lichens, and you see thou-
sands of little trees just springing up between
them, with the seed stiU attached to them.

874 WILD APPLES

Being regularly clipped all around each year
by the cows, as a hedge with shears, they are
often of a perfect conical or pyramidal form,
from one to four feet high, and more or less
sharp, as if trimmed by the gardener's art. In
the pastures on Nobscot Hill and its spurs,
they make fine dark shadows when the sun is
low. They are also an excellent covert from
hawks for many small birds that roost and build
in them. Whole flocks perch in them at night,
and I have seen three robins' nests in one which
was six feet in diameter.

No doubt many of these are already old trees,
if you reckon from the day they were planted,
but infants still when you consider their de-
velopment and the long life before them. I
counted the annual rings of some which were
just one foot high, and as wide as high, and
found that they were about twelve years old,
but quite sound and thrifty ! They were so low
that they were unnoticed by the walker, while
many of their contemporaries from the nurseries
were already bearing considerable crops. But
what you gain in time is perhaps in this case,
too, lost in power, — that is, in the vigor of the
tree. This is their pyramidal state.

The cows continue to browse them thus for
twenty years or more, keeping them down and
compelling them to spread, until at last they

WILD APPLES 875

are so broad that they become their own fence,
when some interior shoot, which their foes can-
not reach, darts upward with joy : for it has not
forgotten its high calling, and bears its own
peculiar fruit in triumph.

Such are the tactics by which it finally
defeats its bovine foes. Now, if you have
watched the progress of a particular shrub, you
will see that it is no longer a simple pyramid or
cone, but that out of its apex there rises a sprig
or two, growing more lustily perchance than an
orchard-tree, since the plant now devotes the
whole of its repressed energy to these upright
parts. In a short time these become a small
tree, an inverted pyramid resting on the apex
of the other, so that the whole has now the form
of a vast hour-glass. The spreading bottom,
having served its purpose, finally disappears,
and the generous tree permits the now harmless
cows to come in and stand in its shade, and rub
against and redden its trunk, which has grown
in spite of them, and even to taste a part of its
fruit, and so disperse the seed.

Thus the cows create their own shade and i

food; and the tree, its hour-glass being in--
verted, lives a second life, as it were.

It is an important question with some nowa-
days, whether you should trim young apple-
trees as high as your nose or as high as your

876 WILD APPLES

eyes. The ox trims them up as high as he can
reach, and that is about the right height, I think.

In spite of wandering kine, and other adverse

circumstances, that despised shrub, valued only

, ^ by small birds as a covert and shelter from

^ hawks, has its blossom-week at last, and in

course of time its harvest, sincere, though small.

By the end of some October, when its leaves
have fallen, I frequently see such a central
sprig, whose progress I have watched, when I
thought it had forgotten its destiny, as I had,
bearing its first crop of small green or yellow or
rosy fruit, which the cows cannot get at over
the bushy and thorny hedge which surrounds it,
and I make haste to taste the new and unde-
scribed variety. We have all heard of the
numerous varieties of fruit invented by Van
Mons and Knight. This is the system of Van
Cow, and she has invented far more and more
memorable varieties than both of them.

Through what hardships it may attain to bear
a sweet fruit! Though somewhat small, it may
prove equal, if not superior, in flavor to that
which has grown in a garden, — will perchance
be all the sweeter and more palatable for the
very difficulties it has had to contend with.
Who knows but this chance wild fruit, planted
by a cow or a bird on some remote and rocky
hillside, where it is as yet unobserved by man.

WILD APPLES 377

may be the choicest of all its kind, and foreign
potentates shall hear of it, and royal societies
seek to propagate it, though the virtues of the
perhaps truly crabbed owner of the soil may
never be heard of, — at least, beyond the limits
of his village? It was thus the Porter and the
Baldwin grew.

Every wild-apple shrub excites our expecta-
tion thus, somewhat as every wild child. It is,
perhaps, a prince in disguise. What a lesson
to man ! So are human beings, referred to the
highest standard, the celestial fruit which they
suggest and aspire to bear, browsed on by fate ;
and only the most persistent and strongest gen-
ius defends itself and prevails, sends a tender
scion upward at last, and drops its perfect fruit
on the ungrateful earth. Poets and philoso-
phers and statesmen thus spring up in the
country pastures, and outlast the hosts of un-
original men.

Such is always the pursuit of knowledge.
The celestial fruits, the golden apples of the
Hesperides, are ever guarded by a hundred-
headed dragon which never sleeps, so that it is
an Herculean labor to pluck them.

This is one, and the most remarkable way in
which the wild apple is propagated; but com-
monly it springs up at wide intervals in woods
and swamps, and by the sides of roads, as the

878 WILD APPLES

soil may suit it, and grows with comparative
rapidity. Those which grow in dense woods
are very tall and slender. I frequency pluck
from these trees a perfectly mild and tamed
fruit. As Palladius says, ^^£!t injtissu conster-
nitur ubere mali : *' And the ground is strewn
with the fruit of an unbidden apple-tree.

It is an old notion that, if these wild trees
do not bear a valuable fruit of their own, they
are the best stocks by which to transmit to pos-
terity the most highly prized qualities of others.
However, I am not in search of stocks, but the
wild fruit itself, whose fierce gust has suffered
no ^^nteneration." It is not my

" highest plot
To plant the Beigamot.^'

THE FRUIT, AND ITS FLAVOR.

The time for wild apples is the last of Octo-
ber and the first of November. They then get
to be palatable, for they ripen late, and they
are still perhaps as beautiful as ever. I make
a great account of these fruits, which the farm-
ers do not think it worth the while to gather, —
wild flavors of the Muse, vivacious and inspirit-
ing. The farmer thinks that he has better in
his barrels, but he is mistaken, unless he has a
walker's appetite and imagination, neither of
which can he have.

WILD APPLES 879

Such as grow quite wild, and are left out till
the first of November, I presume that the owner
does not mean to gather. They belong to chil-
dren as wild as themselves, — to certain active
boys that I know, — to the wild-eyed woman of
the fields, to whom nothing comes amiss, who
gleans after all the world, and, moreover, to us
walkers. We have met with them, and they
are ours. These rights, long enough insisted
upon, have come to be an institution in some
old countries, where they have learned how to
live. I hear that ^the custom of grippling,
which may be called apple-gleaning, is, or was
formerly, practiced in Herefordshire. It con-
sists in leaving a few apples, which are called
the gripples, on every tree, after the general
gathering, for the boys, who go with climbing-
poles and bags to collect them."

As for those I speak of, I pluck them as a
wild fruit, native to this quarter of the earth,
— fruit of old trees that have been dying ever
since I was a boy and are not yet dead, fre-
quented only by the woodpecker and the squir-
rel, deserted now by the owner, who has not
faith enough to look under their boughs. From
the appearance of the tree-top, at a little dis-
tance, you would expect nothing but lichens to
drop from it, but your faith is rewarded by
finding the ground strewn with spirited fruit.

880 WILD APPLES

— some of it, perhaps, collected at squirrel-
holes, with the marks of their teeth by which
they carried them, — some containing a cricket
or two silently feeding within, and some, espe-
cially in damp days, a shell-less snail. The very
sticks and stones lodged in the tree-top might
have convinced you of the savoriness of the fruit
which has been so eagerly sought after in past
years.

I have seen no account of these among the
"Fruits and Fruit-Trees of America," though
they are more memorable to my taste than the
grafted kinds; more racy and wild American
flavors do they possess when October and No-
vember, when December and January, and per-
haps February and March even, have assuaged
them somewhat. An old farmer in my neigh-
borhood, who always selects the right word,
says that "they have a kind of bow-arrow tang."

Apples for grafting appear to have been se-
lected commonly, not so much for their spirited
flavor, as for their mildness, their size, and
bearing qualities, — not so much for their
beauty, as for their fairness and soundness.
Indeed, I have no faith in the selected lists of
pomological gentlemen. Their "Favorites "
and " None-suches " and " Seek-no-f arthers, "
\\ when I have fruited them, commonly turn out
very tame and forgettable. They are eaten with

WILD APPLES 381

comparatively little zest, and have no real tang
nor smack to them.

What if some of these wildings are acrid and
puckery, genuine verjuice^ do they not still be- /^
long to the PomacecB^ which are uniformly in-
nocent and kind to our race? I still begrudge
them to the cider-mill. Perhaps they are not
fairly ripe yet.

No wonder that these small and high-colored
apples are thought to make the best cider.

•

Loudon quotes from the ^^Herefordshire Re-
port/' that ^^ apples of a small size are always,
if equal in quality, to be preferred to those of
a larger size, in order that the rind and kernel
may bear the greatest proportion to the pulp,
which affords the weakest and most watery
juice." And he says that, "to prove this. Dr.
Symonds, of Hereford, about the year 1800,
made one hogshead of cider entirely from the
rinds and cores of apples, and another from the
pulp only, when the first was found of extraor-
dinary strength and flavor, while the latter was
sweet and insipid."

Evelyn says that the "Red-strake" was the
favorite cider-apple in his day; and he quotes
one Dr. Newburg as saying, "In Jersey 't is a
general observation, as I hear, that the more of
red any apple has in its rind, the more proper
it is for this use. Pale-faced apples they ex-

I i

882 WILD APPLES

clade as much as may be from their cider-vat/'
This opinion still prevails.

All apples are good in November. Those
which the farmer leaves out as unsalable and
unpalatable to those who frequent the markets
are choicest fruit to the walker. But it is re-
markable that the wild apple, which I praise as
so spirited and racy when eaten in the fields or
woods, being brought into the house, has fre-
quently a harsh and crabbed taste. The Saun-
terer's Apple not even the saunterer can eat in j
the house. The palate rejects it there, as it
does haws and acorns, and demands a tamed
one; for there you miss the November air,
which is the sauce it is to be eaten with. Ac-
cordingly, when Tityrus, seeing the lengthening
shadows, invites Meliboeus to go home and pass
the night with him, he promises him mUd ap-
pies and soft chestnuts, — mitia poma, castanecB
molles. I frequently pluck wild apples of so
rich and spicy a flavor that I wonder all or-
chardists do not get a scion from that tree, and
I fail not to bring home my pockets full. But
perchance, when I take one out of my desk and
taste it in my chamber, I find it unexpectedly
crude, — sour enough to set a squirrel's teeth
on edge and make a jay scream.

These apples have hung in the wind and frost
and rain till they have absorbed the qualities of

WILD APPLES 388

the weather or season, and thus are highly sea-
sonedy and they iiierce and sting and permeate
us with their spirit. They must be eaten in
season, accordingly, — that is, out-of-doors.

To appreciate the wild and sharp flavors of
these October fruits, it is necessary that you be
breathing the sharp October or November air.
The out-door air and exercise which the walker
gets give a different tone to his palate, and he
craves a fruit which the sedentary would call

) harsh and crabbed. They must be eaten in the
fields, when your system is all aglow with ex-i
ercise, when the frosty weather nips your fin^
gers» the wind rattles the bare boughs or rustles

i the few remaining leaves, and the jay is heard
screaming around. What is sour in the house
a bracing walk makes sweet. Some of these
apples might be labeled, ^'To be eaten in the
wind."

Of course no flavors are thrown away ; they
are intended for the taste that is up to them.
Some apples have two distinct flavors, and per-
haps one half of them must be eaten in the
house, the other out-doors. One Peter Whit-
ney wrote from Northborough in 1782, for the
Proceedings of the Boston Academy, describing
an apple-tree in that town ''producing fruit of
opposite qualities, part of tiie same apple being
frequently sour and the other sweet; " also some

384 WILD APPLES

all sour, and others all sweet, and this diversity
on all parts of the tree.

There is a wild apple on Nawshawtuck Hill
in my town which has to me a peculiarly pleas-
ant bitter tang, not perceived till it is three
quarters tasted. It remains on the tongue.
As you eat it, it smells exactly like a squash-
bug. It is a sort of triumph to eat and relish it.

I hear that the fruit of a kind of plum-tree in
Provence is "called Prunes sihardles^ because
it is impossible to whistle after having eaten
them, from their sourness.'' But perhaps they
were only eaten in the house and in smnmer,
and if tried out-of-doors in a stinging atmos-
phere, who knows but you could whistle an oc-
tave higher and clearer?

In the fields only are the sours and bitters of
Nature appreciated; just as the wood-chopper
eats his meal in a sunny glade, in the middle of
a winter day, with content, basks in a sunny
ray there, and dreams of summer in a degree of
cold which, experienced in a chamber, would
make a student miserable. They who are at
work abroad are not cold, but rather it is they
who sit shivering in houses. As with tempera-
tures, so with flavors; as with cold and heat, so
with sour and sweet. This natural raciness,
the sours and bitters which the diseased palate
refuses, are the true condiments.

WILD APPLES 385

Let your condiments be in the condition of
your senses. To appreciate the flavor of these
wild apples requires vigorous and healthy
senses, papillm firm and erect on the tongue ^/
and palate, not easily flattened and tamed.

From my experience with wild apples, I can
understand that there may be reason for a sav-
age's preferring many kinds of food which the
civilized man rejects. The former has the pal-
ate of an out-door man. It takes a savage or
wild taste to appreciate a wild fruit.

What a healthy out-of-door appetite it takes
to relish the apple of life, the apple of the
world, then!

** Nor is it eyery apple I denre,

Nor that which pleases every palate best ;
'T is Dot the lasting Deuxan I require,

Nor yet the red-cheeked Greening I request,
Nor that which first beshrewed the name of wife,
Nor that whose beanty caused the golden strife :
No, no I bring me an apple from the tree of life."

So there is one thought for the field, another
for the house. I would have my thoughts, like
wild apples, to be food for walkers, and will
not warrant them to be palatable if tasted in
the house.

THEIR BEAUTY.

Almost all wild apples are handsome. They
cannot be too gnarly and crabbed and rusty to
look at. The gnarliest will have some redeem* //

386 WILD APPLES

iDg traits even to the eye. You will diseover
some evening redness dashed or sprinkled on
some protuberance or in some cavity. It is
rare that the summer lets an apple go without
streaking or spotting it on some part of its
sphere. It will have some red stains, com-
memorating the mornings and evenings it has
witnessed; some dark and rusty blotches, in
memory of the clouds and foggy, mildewy days
that have passed over it; and a spacious field
of green reflecting the general face of Nature,

— green even as the fields ; or a yellow ground,
which implies a milder flavor, — yellow as the
harvest, or russet as the hills.

Apples, these I mean, unspeakably fair, —
apples not of Discord, but of Concord! Yet
not so rare but that the homeliest may have a
share. Painted by the frosts, some a uniform
clear bright yellow, or red, or crimson, as if
their spheres had regularly revolved, and en-
joyed the influence of the sun on all sides alike,

— some with the faintest pink blush imaginable,

— some brindled with deep red streaks like a
cow, or with hundreds of fine blood-red rays
running regularly from the stem-dimple to the
blossom-end, like meridional lines, on a straw-
colored ground, — some touched with a greenish
rust, like a fine lichen, here and there, wiHi
crimson blotches or eyes more or less confluent

WILD APPLES 887

and fiery when wet, — and otherB gnsM*ly, and
freckled or peppered all over on the stem side
with fine crimson spots on a white ground, as if
accidentally sprinkled from the brush of Him
who paints the autumn leaves. Others, again,
are sometimes red inside, perfused with a beau-
tiful blush, fairy food, too beautiful to eat, —
apple of the Hesperides, apple of the evening
sky! But like shells and pebbles on the sea-
shore, they must be seen as they sparkle amid
the withering leaves in some dell in the woods,
in the autumnal air, or as they lie in the wet
grass, and not when they have wilted and faded
in the house.

THE NAMING OP THiM.

It would be a pleasant pastime to find suita-
ble names for the hundred varieties which go to
a single heap at the cider-mill. Would it not
tax a man's invention, — no one to be named
after a man, and all in the lingua vemacvla ?
Who shall stand godfather at the christening of
the wild apples? It would -exhaust the Latin
and Greek languages, if they were used, and
make the lingua vemacula flag. We should
have to call in the sunrise and the sunset, the
rainbow and the autumn woods and the wild
flowers, and the woodpecker and the purple
finch and the squirrel and the jay and the but-

388 WILD APPLES

terfly, the November traveler and the truant
boy, to our aid.

In 1836 there were in the garden of the Lon-
don Horticultural Society more than fourteen
hundred distinct sorts. But here are species
which they have not in their catalogue, not to
mention the varieties which our Crab might
yield to cultivation.

Let us enumerate a few of these. I find my-
self compelled, after all, to give the Latin
names of some for the benefit of those who live
where English is not spoken, — for they are
likely to have a world-wide reputation.

There is, first of all, the Wood- Apple (Jdalits
sylvaticd) ; the Blue-Jay Apple; the Apple
which grows in Dells in the Woods (sylvestri-
valUs)^ also in Hollows in Pastures (campestri-
vallis) ; the Apple that grows in an old Cellar-
Hole (Jdalus cellaris) ; the Meadow- Apple ; the
Partridge - Apple ; the Truant's Apple (ceasa-
toris)^ which no boy will ever go by without
knocking off some, however late it may be; the
Saimterer's Apple, — you must lose yourself
before you can find the way to that; the Beauty
of the Air (Deems Aerisy^ December-Eating;
the Frozen-Thawed (gelato-8oluta\ good only
in that state ; the Concord Apple, possibly the
same with the Mushetaquidensis ; the Assabet
Apple; the Brindled Apple; Wine of New

WILD APPLES 389

England; the Chickaree Apple; the Green
Apple (^Malus viridis)^ — this has many syno-
nyms: in an imperfect state, it is the Cholera
morbifera aut dysenterifera^ puendis dilectis-
sima; the Apple which Atalanta stopped to
pick up; the Hedge- Apple (Malus Sepium)\
the Slug- Apple (limaced) ; the Railroad-Apple,
which perhaps came from a core thrown out of
the cars; the Apple whose Fruit we tasted in
our Youth; our Particular Apple, not to be
found in any catalogue, — Pedestrium Sola-
tium ; also the Apple where hangs the Forgot-
ten Scythe; Iduna's Apples, and the Apples
which Loki found in the Wood; and a great
many more I have on my list, too numerous to
mention, — -^all of them good. As Bodaeus ex-
claims, referring to the cultivated kinds, and
adapting Virgil to his case, so I, adapting Bo-
daeus, —

** Not if I had a hundred tongnes, a hundred months,
An iron yoice, could I describe all the forms
And reckon up all the names of these wHd apples,^''

THE LAST GLEANING.

By the middle of November the wild apples
have lost some of their brilliancy, and have
chiefly fallen. A great part are decayed on the
ground, and the sound ones are more palatable
than before. The note of the chickadee sounds

890 WILD APPLES

now more distinct, as you wander amid the old
trees, and the autmnnal dandelion is half closed
and tearful. But still, if you are a skillful
gleaner, you may get many a pocketful even
of grafted fruit, long after apples are supposed
to be gone out-of-doors. I know a Blue-Pear-
main tree, growing within the edge of a swamp,
almost as good as wild. You would not sup-
pose that there was any fruit left there, on the
first survey, but you must look according to sys-
tem. Those .which lie exposed 'are quite brown
and rotten now, or perchance a few still show
one blooming cheek here and there amid the
wet leaves. Nevertheless, with experienced
eyes, I explore amid the bare alders and the
huckleberry-bushes and the withered sedge, and
in the crevices of the rocks, which are full of
leaves, and pry under the fallen and decaying
ferns, which, with apple and alder leaves,
thickly strew the ground. For I know that
they lie concealed, fallen into hollows long since
and covered up by the leaves of the tree itself,
— a proper kind of packing. From these lurk-
ing-places, anywhere within the circumference
of the tree, I draw forth the fruit, all wet and
glossy, may be nibbled by rabbits and hollowed
out by crickets, and perhaps with a leaf or two
cemented to it (as Curzon an old manuscript
from a monastery's mouldy cellar), but still

WILD APPLES 391

with a rich bloom on it, and at least as ripe and
well kept, if not better than those in barrels,
more crisp and lively than they. If these re-
sources fail to yield anything, I have learned to
look between the bases of the suckers which
spring thickly from some horizontal limb, for
now and then one lodges there, or in the very
midst of an alder-clump, where they are covered
by leaves, safe from cows which may have
smelled them out. If I am sharp-set, for I do
not refuse the Blue-Pearmain, I fill my pockets
on each side ; and as I retrace my steps in the
frosty eve, being perhaps four or five miles
from home, I eat one first from this side, and
then from that, to keep my balance.

I learn from Topsell's Gesner, whose author-
ity appears to be Albertus, that the following
is the way in which the hedgehog collects and
carries home his apples. He says, — "His
meat is apples, worms, or grapes : when he find-
eth apples or grapes on the earth, he rolleth
himself upon them, until he have filled all his
prickles, and then carrieth them home to his
den, never bearing above one in his mouth;
and if it fortune that one of them fall off by
the way, he likewise shaketh off all the residue,
and walleweth upon them afresh, until they be
all settled upon his back again. So, forth he
goeth, making a noise like a cart-wheel; and if

892 WILD APPLES

he have any young ones in his nest, they pull
off his load wherewithal he is loaded, eating
thereof what they please, and laying up the
residue for the time to come."

THE "frozen-thawed" APPLE.

Toward the end of November, though some
of the sound ones are yet more mellow and per-
haps more edible, they have generally, like the
leaves, lost their beauty, and are beginning to
freeze. It is finger-cold, and prudent farmers
get in their barreled apples, and bring you the
apples and cider which they have engaged ; for
it is time to put them into the cellar. Perhaps
a few on the ground show their red cheeks above
the early snow, and occasionally some even pre-
serve their color and soundness under the snow
throughout the winter. But generally at the
beginning of the winter they freeze hard, and
soon, though undecayed, acquire the color of a
baked apple.

Before the end of December, generally, they
experience their first thawing. Those which a
month ago were sour, crabbed, and quite un-
palatable to the civilized taste, such at least as
were frozen while sound, let a warmer sun come
to thaw them, for they are extremely sensitive
to its rays, are found to be filled with a rich
sweet cider, better than any bottled cider that I

WILD APPLES 893

know of, and with which I am better acquainted
than with wine. All apples are good in this
state, and your jaws are the cider-press. Oth-
ers, which have more substance, are a sweet
and luscious food, — in my opinion of more
worth than the pineapples which are imported
from the West Indies. Those which lately
even I tasted only to repent of it, — for I am
semi-civilized, - — which the farmer willingly left
on the tree, I am now glad to find have the prop-
erty of hanging on like the leaves of the young
oaks. It is a way to keep cider sweet without
boiling. Let the frost come to freeze them
first, solid as stones, and then the rain or a
warm winter day to thaw them, and they will
seem to have borrowed a flavor from heaven
through the medium of the air in which they
hang. Or perchance you find, when you get
home, that those which rattled in your pocket
have thawed, and the ice is turned to cider.
But after the third or fourth freezing and thaw-
ing they will not be found so good.

What are the imported half -ripe fruits of the
torrid South, to this fruit matured by the cold
of the frigid North? These are those crabbed
apples with which I cheated my companion, and
kept a smooth face that I might tempt him to
eat. Now we both greedily fill our pockets
with them, — bending to drink the cup and save

894 WILD APPLES

our lappets from the overflowing juioe, — and
grow more social with their wine. Was there
one that hung so high and sheltered by the tan-
gled branches that our sticks coidd not dislodge
it?

It is a fruit never carried to market, that I
am aware of, — quite distinct from the apple of
the markets, as from dried apple and cider, —
and it is not every winter that produces it in
perfection.

The era of the Wild Apple will soon be past.
It is a fruit which will probably become ex-
tinct in New England. You may still wander
through old orchards of native fruit of great
extent, which for the most part went to the
cider-mill, now all gone to decay. I have heard
of an orchard in a distant town, on the side of
a hill, where the apples rolled down and lay
four feet deep against a wall on the lower side,
and this the owner cut down for fear they should
be made into cider. Since the temperance, re-
form and the general introduction of grafted
fruit, no native apple-trees, such as I see every-
where in deserted pastures, and where the woods
have grown up around them, are set out. I
fear that he who walks over these fields a cen-
tury hence will not know the pleasure of knock-
ing off wild apples. Ah, poor man, there are

WILD APPLES 395

many pleasures which he will not know! Not-
withstanding the prevalence of the Baldwin
and the Porter, I doubt if so extensive orchards
are set out to-day in my town as there were a
century ago, when those vast straggling cider-
orchards were planted, when men both ate and
drank apples, when the pomace-heap was the
only nursery, and trees cost nothing but the
trouble of setting them out. Men could afford
then to stick a tree by every wall-side and let
it take its chance. I see nobody planting trees
to-day in such out of the way places, along the
lonely roads and lanes, and at the bottom of
dells in the wood. Now that they have grafted
trees, and pay a price for them, they collect
them into a plat by their houses, and fence
them in, — and the end of it all will be that we
shall be compelled to look for our apples in a
barrel.

This is "The word of the Lord that came to
Joel the son of Pethuel.

" Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye
inhabitants of the land! Hath this been in
your days, or even in the days of your fa-
thers? . . .

"That which the palmerworm hath left hath
the locust eaten; and that which the locust
hath left hath the cankerworm eaten ; and that
which the cankerworm hath left hath the cater-
pillar eaten.

896 WILD APPLES

^^ Awake, ye drunkards, and weep! and howl,
all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new
wine ! for it is cut off from your mouth.

^^For a nation is come up upon my land,
strong, and without number, whose teeth are
the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth
of a great lion.

^^He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my
fig-tree; he hath made it clean bare, and cast
it away; the branches thereof are made
white. . . .

"Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen! howl,
O ye vinedressers ! . . .

"The vine is dried up, and the fig-tree Ian-
guisheth; the pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree
also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees of
the field, are withered: because joy is withered
away from the sons of men."

T^^'

NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT

Changino to take a memorable walk by
moonlight some years ago, I resolved to take
more such walks, and make acquaintance with
another side of nature : I have done so.

According to Pliny, there is a stone in Ara-
bia called Selenites, ''wherein is a white, which
increases and decreases with the moon." My
journal for the last year or two has been sdeni-
tic in this sense.

Is not the midnight like Central Africa to
most of us? Are we not tempted to explore it,
— to penetrate to the shores of its lake Tchad,
and discover the source of its Nile, perchance
the Mountains of the Moon? Who knows what
fertility and beauty, moral and natural, are
there to be found? In the Mountains of the
Moon, in the Central Africa of the night, there
is where all Niles /have their hidden heads.
The expeditions up the Nile as yet extend but
to the Cataracts, or perchance to the mouth of
the White Nile ; but it is the Black Nile that
concerns us.

I shall be a benefactor if I conquer some

398 NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT

realms from the night, if I report to the gazettes
anything transpiring about us at that season
worthy of their attention, — if I can show men
that there is some beauty awake while they are
asleep, — if I add to the domains of poetry.

^ight is certainly more novel and less pro-
fane than day. I soon discovered that I was
acquainted only with its complexion, and as for
the moon, I had seen her only as it were
through a crevice in a shutter, occasionally.
Why not walk a little way in her light?

Suppose you attend to the suggestions which
the moon makes for one month, commonly in
vain, will it not be very different from any-
thing in literature or religion? But why not
study this Sanskrit? What if one moon has
come and gone with its world of poetry, its
weird teachings, its oracular suggestions, — so
divine a creature freighted with hints for me,
and I have not used her? One moon gone by
unnoticed ?

I think it was Dr. Chalmers who said, criti-
cising Coleridge, that for his part he wanted
ideas which he could see all round, and not such
as he must look at away up in the heavens.
Such a man, one would say, would never look
at the moon, because she never turns her other
side to us. The light which comes from ideas
which have their orbit as distant from the earth,

NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 399

and which is no less cheering and enlightening
to the benighted traveler than that of the moon
and stars, is naturally reproached or nicknamed
as moonshine by such. They are moonshine,
are they? Well, then do your night-traveling
when there is no moon to light you ; but I will
be^ thankful for the light that reaches me from
the star of least magnitude. Stars are lesser or
greater only as they appear to us so. I will
be thankful that I see so much as one side of a
celestial idea, — one side of the rainbow, — and
the sunset sky.

Men talk glibly enough about moonshine, as
if they knew its qualities very well, and despised
them; as owls might talk of simshine. None
of your sunshine, — but this word commonly
means merely something which they do not un-
derstand, — which they are abed and asleep to,
however much it may be worth their while to
be up and awake to it.

It must be allowed that the light of the moon,
sufficient though it is for the pensive walker,
and not disproportionate to the inner light we
have, is very inferior in quality and intensity to
that of the sun. But the moon is not to be
judged alone by the quantity of light she sends
to us, but also by her influence on the earth and
its inhabitants. ^'The moon gravitates toward
the earth, and the earth reciprocally toward the

400 NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT

moon." The poet who walks by moonlight is
conscious of a tide in his thought which is to be
referred to lunar influence. I will endeavor to
separate the tide in my thoughts from the cur-
rent distractions of the day. I would warn my
hearers that they must not try my thoughts by
a daylight standard, but endeavor to realize
that I speak out of the night. All depends on
your point of view. In Drake's "Collection of
Voyages," Wafer says of some Albinoes among
the Indians of Darien, "They are quite white,
but their whiteness is like that of a horse, quite
different from the fair or pale European, as
they have not the least tincture of a blush or
sanguine complexion. . . . Their eyebrows are
milk-white, as is likewise the hair of their heads,
which is very fine. . . . They seldom go abroad
in the daytime, the sun being disagreeable to
them, and causing their eyes, which are weak
and poring, to water, especially if it shines
towards them, yet they see very well by moon-
light, from which we call them moon-eyed."

Neither in our thoughts in these moonlight
walks, methinks, is there "the least tincture of
a blush or sanguine complexion," but we are
intellectually and morally Albinoes, — children
of Endymion, — such is the effect of conversing
much with the moon.

I complain of Arctic voyagers that they do

NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 401

not enough remind us of the constant peculiar
dreariness of the scenery, and the perpetual twi-
light of the Arctic night. So he whose theme
is moonlight, though he may find it difficult,
must, as it were, illustrate it with the light of
the moon alone.

Many men walk by day ; few walk by night.
It is a very different season. Take a July
night, for instance. About ten o'clock, —
when man is asleep, and day fairly forgotten,

— the beauty of moonlight is seen over lonely
pastures where cattle are silently feeding. On
all sides novelties present themselves. Instead
of the sun there are the moon and stars, instead
of the wood-thrush there is the whip-poor-will,

— instead of butterflies in the meadows, fire-
flies, winged sparks of fire! who woidd have
believed it? What kind of cool deliberate life
dwells in those dewy abodes associated with a
spark of fire? So man has fire in his eyes, or
blood, or brain. Instead of singing birds, the
half -throttled note of a cuckoo flying over, the
croaking of frogs, and the intenser dream of
crickets. But above all, the wonderful trump
of the bullfrog, ringing from Maine to Geor-
gia. The potato-vines stand upright, the corn
grows apace, the bushes loom, the grain-fields
are boundless. On our open river terraces once
cultivated by the Indian, they appear to occupy

402 NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT

the ground like an army, — their heads nodding
in the breeze. Small trees and shrubs are seen
in the midst overwhelmed as by an inundation.
The shadows of rocks and trees, and shrubs and
hills, are more conspicuous than the objects
themselves. The slightest irregularities in the
groimd are revealed by the shadows, and what
the feet find comparatively smooth appears
rough and diversified in consequence. For the
same reason the whole landscape is more varie-
gated and picturesque than by day. The small-
est recesses in the rocks are dim and cavernous ;
the ferns in the wood appear* of tropical size.
The sweet fern and indigo in overgrown wood-
paths wet you with dew up to your middle.
The leaves of the shrub-oak are shining as if a
liquid were flowing over them. The pools seen
through the trees are as full of light as the sky.
"The light of the day takes refuge in their bos-
oms," as the Furana says of the ocean. All
white objects are more remarkable than by day.
A distant cliff looks like a phosphorescent space
on a hillside. The woods are heavy and dark.
Nature slumbers. You see the moonlight re-
flected from particular stumps in the recesses of
the forest, as if she selected what to shine on.
These small fractions of her light remind one of
the plant called moon-seed, — as if the moon
were sowing it in such places.

NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 408

•

In the night the eyes are partly closed or re-
tire into the head. Other senses take the lead.
The walker is guided as well by the sense of
smell. Every plant and field and forest emits
its odor now, swamp-pink in the meadow and
tansy in the road; and there is the peculiar dry
scent of com which has begun to show its tas-
sels. The senses both of hearing and smelling
are more alert. We hear the tinkling of rills
which we never detected before. From time to
time, high up on the sides of hills, you pass
through a stratum of warm air. A blast which
has come up from the sultry plains of noon. It
tells of the day, of sunny noon-tide hours and
banks, of the laborer wiping his brow and the
bee humming amid flowers. It is an air in
which work has been done, — which men have
breathed. It circulates about from woodside
to hillside like a dog that has lost its master,
now that the sun is gone. The rocks retain all
night the warmth of the sun which they have
absorbed. And so does the sand. If you dig
a few inches into it you find a warm bed. You
lie on your back on a rock in a pasture on the
top of some bare hill at midnight, and speculate
on the height of the starry canopy. The stars
are the jewels of the night, and perchance sur-
pass anything which day has to show. A com-
panion with whom I was sailing one very windy

404 NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT

but bright moonlight night, when the stars were
few and faint, thought that a man could get
along with them^ — though he was considerably
reduced in his circumstances, — that they were
a kind of bread and cheese that never failed.

No wonder that there have been astrologers,
that some have conceived that they were per-
sonally related to particular stars. Dubartas,

as translated by Sylvester, says he '11

** not believe that the g^reat architect
With all these fires the heavenly arches decked
Only for show, and with these glistering shields,
T' awake poor shepherds, watching in the fields."
He 'U " not believe that the least flower which pranks
Our garden borders, or our common banks.
And the least stone, that in her warming lap
Our mother earth doth covetously wrap,
Hath some peculiar virtue of its own.
And that the glorious stars of heav'n have none."

And Sir Walter Ealeigh weU says, "The
stars are instruments of far greater use than
to give an obscure light, and for men to gaze
on after sunset;" and he quotes Plotinus as
affirming that they "are significant, but not
efficient; " and also Augustine as saying, ^'Deus
regit inferiora corpora per superiora:^^ God
rules the bodies below by those above. But
best of all is this which another writer has ex-
pressed: ^^ Sapiens adjuvabit opus astrorum
qtiemadmodum agricola terrce naturam:** a

NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 405

wise man assisteth the work of the stars as the
husbandman helpeth the nature of the soil.

It does not concern men who are asleep in
their beds, but it is very important to the trav-
eler, whether the moon shines brightly or is
obscured. It is not easy to realize the serene
joy of all the earth, when she commences to
shine unobstructedly, unless you have often
been abroad alone in moonlight nights. She
seems to be waging continual war with the
clouds in your behalf. Yet we fancy the clouds
to be her foes also. She comes on magnifying
her dangers by her light, revealing, displaying
them in all their hugeness and blackness, then
suddenly casts them behind into the light con-
cealed, and goes her way triumphant through a
small space of clear sky.

In short, the moon traversing, or appearing
to traverse, the small clouds which lie in her
way, now obscured by them, now easily dissi-
pating and shining through them, makes the
drama of the moonlight night to all watchers
and night-travelers. Sailors speak of it as the
moon eating up the clouds. The traveler all
alone, the moon all alone, except for his sympa-
thy, overcoming with incessant victory whole
squadrons of clouds above the forests and lakes
and hills. When she is obscured he so sympa-
thizes with her that he could whip a dog for

40!5 NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT

her relief, as Indians do. When she enters on
a clear field of great extent in the heavens, and
shines unobstructedly, he is glad. And when
she has fought her way through all the squad-
ron of her foes, and rides majestic in a clear
sky unscathed, and there are no more any ob-
structions in her path, he cheerfully and con-
fidently pursues his way, and rejoices in his
heart, and the cricket also seems to expre3s joy
in its song.

How insupportable would be the days, if the
night with its dews and darkness did not come
to restore the drooping world. As the shades
begin to gather around us, our primeval in-
stincts are aroused, and we steal forth from
our lairs, like the inhabitants of the jungle, in
search of those silent and brooding thoughts
which are the natural prey of the intellect.

Richter says that "the earth is every day
overspread with the veil of night for the same
reason as the cages of birds are darkened, viz. :
that we may the more readily apprehend the
higher harmonies of thought in the hush and
quiet of darkness. Thoughts which day turns
into smoke and mist stand about us in the night
as light and flames; even as the column which
fluctuates above the crater of Vesuvius, in the
daytime appears a pillar of cloud, but by night
a pillar of fire."

NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 407

There are nights in this climate of such serene
and majestic beauty, so medicinal and fertiliz-
ing to the spirit, that methinks a sensitive na-
ture would not devote them to oblivion, and
perhaps there is no man but would be better
and wiser for spending them out - of - doors,
though he should sleep all the next day to pay
for it; should sleep an Endymion sleep, as the
ancients expressed it, — nights which warrant
the Grecian epithet ambrosial, when, as in the
land of Beulah, the atmosphere is charged with
dewy fragrance, and with music, and we take
our repose and have our dreams awake, — when
the moon, not secondary to the sun, —

*^ gfives US his blaze again,
Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day.
Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,
Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime.'*

Diana still hunts in the New England sky.

*' In Heaven queen she is among the spheres.

She, mistress-like, makes aU things to be pure.
Eternity in her oft change she bears ;
She Beauty is ; by her the fair endure.

^* Time wears her not ; she doth his chariot guide ;
Mortality below her orb is placed ;
By her the virtues of the stars down slide ;
By her is Virtue's perfect image cast."

The Hindoos compare the moon to a saintly
being who has reached the last stage of bodily
existence.

408 NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT

Great restorer of antiquity, great enchanter.
In a mild night when the harvest or hunter's
moon shines unobstructedly, the houses in our
village, whatever architect they may have had
by day, acknowledge only a master. The vil-
lage street is then as wild as the forest. New
and old things are confounded. I know not
whether I am sitting on the ruins of a wall, or
on the material which is to compose a new one.
Nature is an instructed and impartial teacher,
spreading no crude opinions, and flattering
none ; she will be neither radical nor conserva-
tive. Consider the moonlight, so civil, yet so
savage !

The light is more proportionate to our know-
ledge than that of day. It is no more dusky
in ordinary nights than our mind's habitual at-
mosphere, and the moonlight is as bright as our
most illuminated moments are.

^' In such a Dight let me abroad remain
Till morning breaks, and all 's confused again."

Of what significance the light of day, if it is
not the reflection of an inward dawn? — to what
purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the
morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is
merely garish and glaring.

When Ossian in his address to the sun ex-
claims, —

NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 409

** Where has darkness its dwelling ?
Where is the caTemous home of the stars,
When thou qnickly f oUowest their steps,
Pnrsuing them like a hunter in the sky, —
Thou climbing the lofty hills,
They descending on barren mountains ? "

who does not in his thought accompany the
stars to their "cavernous home," "descending"
with them "on barren mountains "?

Nevertheless, even by night the sky is blue
and not black, for we see through the shadow of
the earth into the distant atmosphere of day,
where the sunbeams are reveling.

MAY DATS

Mat 1, 1841. Life in gardens and parlors
is unpalatable to me. It wants rudeness and
necessity to give it relish. I would at least
strike my spade into tiie earth with as good-wiU
as the woodpecker his bill into a tree.

May 1, 1851. Khaled would have his weary
soldiers vigilaut stiU. Apprehending a mid-
night sally from the enemy, ''Let no man
sleep," said he; ^^we shall have rest enough
after death."

May 1, 1852. Five a. m. To Cliffs. A
smart frost in the night. The ploughed ground
and platforms white with it. I hear the little
forked-taUed chipping-sparrow {Fringilla so-
cialis) shaking out his rapid "tchi-tchi-tchi-tchi-
tchi-tchi," — a little jingle from the oak behind
the depot. I hear the note of tfiat plump bird
with a dark streaked breast, that runs and hides
in the grass, whose note sounds so like a crick-
et's in the grass. I used to hear it when I
walked by moonlight last summer. I hear it
now from deep in the sod, for there is hardly
grass yet. The bird keeps so low you do not
see it. You do not suspect how many there are

MAY DAYS 411

till their heads appear. The word seringo re-
minds me of its note, as if it were produced by
some kind of fine metallic spring. It is an
earth sound.

It is a moist, lowering morning for the May-
ers. The sun now shines under a cloud in the
horizon, and his still yellow light falls on the
western fields as sometimes on the eastern after
a shower in a siunmer afternoon. Nuttall says
the note of the chipping-sparrow is "given from
time to time in the night, like the reverie of a
dream." Have I not heard it when spearing?
Found the first violet which would open to-day,
V. sagittata var. ovata^ — or cucuUata ? for
the leaves are not toothed at base nor arrow-
shaped as in the first, yet they are hairy, and, I
should say, petiole-margined ; still, like the lat-
ter, they are rolled in at base, and the scape is
four-angled. . . . The woods have a damp smell
this morning. I hear a robin amid them. Yet
there are fewer singers to be heard than on a
very pleasant morning some weeks ago. The
low early blueberry (June berry) is well budded.
The grass ground — low ground, at least —
wears a good green tinge ; there are no leaves
on the woods; the river is high over the
meadows. There is a thin, gauze-like veil over
the village (I am on Fairhaven Hill), probably
formed of the smokes. As yet we have had no

412 MAY DAYS

morning fogs, to my knowledge. I hear the
first to-wee finch; he says, "to- wee-to-wee;"
and another, much farther ofiE than I supposed
when I went in search of him, says, "whip your
chr-r-r-r-r-r," with a metallic ring. I hear the
first cat-bird, also, mewing, and the wood-
thrush, which still thrills me, — a sound to be
heard in a new country from one side of a clear-
ing. I heard a black and white creeper just
now, "wicher-wicher-wicher-wich." I am on
the ClifiE. It is about six. The flicker cackles.
I hear a woodpecker tapping. The tinkle of
the huckleberry bird comes up from the shrub-
oak plain. He conunonly lives away from the
habitations of men, in retired bushy fields and
sprout lands. We have thus flowers and the
song of birds before the woods leave out, like
poetry. When leaving the woods I heard the
hooting of an owl, which sounded very much
like a clown calling to his team. Saw two large
woodpeckers on an oak. I am tempted to say
that they were other and larger than the flicker;
but I have been deceived in him before. . . .

The little peeping frogs which I got last night
resemble the description of the Hylodes Picker^
ingii^ and in some respects the peeping hyla;
but they are probably the former, though every
way considerably smaller. Mine are about
three fourths of an inch long as they sit, seven

MAY DAYS 413

eighths if stretched; four-fingered and five-toed,
with small tubercles on the ends of them.
Some difference in their color. One is like a
pale oak leaf at this season, streaked with
brown. Two others more ashy. Two have
crosses on back, of dark brown, with transverse
bands on the legs. I keep them in a tumbler.
They peep at twilight and evening; occasionally
at other times. One that got out in the evening
on to the carpet was found soon after, by his
peeping,' on the piano. They easily ascend the
glass of the window. Jump eighteen inches or
more. When they peep, the loose, wrinkled
skin of the throat is swelled up into a globular
bubble, very large and transparent, and quite
round, except on the throat side, behind which
their little heads are lost, mere protuberances
on the side of this sphere. The peeping wholly
absorbs them, their mouths being shut, or ap-
parently so. Will sit half a day on the side of
a smooth tumbler. Made that trilling note in
the house. Remain many hours at the bottom
of the water in the tumbler, or sit as long on
the leaves above. A pulse in the throat always,
except in one for an hour or two, apparently
asleep. They change their color to a darker or
lighter shade, chameleon-like.

May 1, 1863. To Cliffs. The oak leaves
on the plain are fallen. The colors are now

414 MAY DAYS

light l)lue above (where is my cyanometer?
Saussure invented one, and Humboldt used it
in his travels) ; the landscape russet and green-
ish, spotted with fawn-colored ploughed lands,
with green pine and gray or reddish oak woods
intermixed, and dark blue or slate-colored water
here and there. It is greenest in the meadows
and where water has lately stood, and a strong,
invigorating scent comes up from the fresh
meadows. It is like the greenness of an apple
faintly or dimly appearing through the russet.

May 1, 1854. Early starlight by river-side.
The water smooth and broad. I hear the loud
and incessant cackling of probably the pigeon
woodpecker, what some time since I thought to
be a different kind. Thousands of robins are
filling the air with their trills, mingling with
the peeping of hylodes and ringing of frogs;
and now the snipes have just begun their win-
nowing sounds and squeaks.

May 1, 1865. p. m. By boat with S

to Conantum a-maying.

The myrtle bird is one of the commones't and
tamest birds now. It catches insects like a
pewee, darting oflE from its perch and returning
to it, and sings something like '^a-chill chill,
chill chill, chill chill, a-twear, twill twill twee,"
or it may be all tw (not loud, a little like the
Fringilla hiemalis^ or more like the pine war-

MAY DAYS 415

bier), rapid, and more and more intense as it
advances. There is an unaccountable si?veetness
as of flowers in the air. A true May day, —
raw and drizzling in the morning. The grackle
still. What various brilliant and evanescent
colors on the surface of this agitated water, —
now, as we are crossing Willow Bay, looking
toward the half-concealed sun over the foam-
spotted flood I It reminds me of the sea. . . .

Went to G 's for the hawk of yesterday.

It was nailed to the bam in terrorem, and as a
trophy. He gave it to me, with an egg. He
called it the female, and probably was right, it
was so large. He tried in vain to shoot the
male, which I saw circling about just out of
gunshot, and screaming, while he robbed the
nest. He climbed the tree when I was there
yesterday p. m., and found two young, which
he thought not more than a fortnight old, with
only down, at least no feathers, and one addled
egg; also three or four white-bellied or deer
mice (^Mus leucopus)^ a perch and a sucker, and
a gray rabbit's skin. I think they must have
found the fish dead. They were now stale. I
found the remains of a partridge under the tree.
G had seen squirrels, etc., in other nests.

May 1, 1857. Two p. m. First notice the
ring of the toad as I am crossing the common in
front of the meeting-house. There is a cool

416 MAY DAYS

and breezy south wind, and the ring of the first
toad leaks into the general stream of sound un-
noticed by most, as the mill brook empties into
the river, and the voyager cannot tell if he is
above or below its mouth. The bell was ring-
ing for town meeting, and every one heard it,
but none heard this older and more universal
bell, rung by more native Americans all the
land over. It is a sound from amid the waves
of the aerial sea, that breaks on our ears with
the surf of the air, — a soimd that is almost
breathed with the wind, taken into the lungs
instead of being heard by the ears. It comes
from far over and through the troughs of the
aerial sea, like a petrel ; and who can guess by
what pool the singer sits ? — whether behind the
meeting-house sheds, or over the burying-
ground hill, or by the river-side. A new reign
has commenced. Bufo the first has ascended
his throne, the surface of the earth, marshaled
into office by the south wind. Bufo, the double-
chinned, inflates his throat. Attend to his mes-
sage. Take off your great coats, swains, and
prepare for the siunmer campaign. Hop a few
paces farther toward your goals. The measures
which I shall advocate are warmth, moisture,
and low-flying insects. . . .

It is foolish for a man to accumulate material
wealth chiefly, houses and lands. Our stock in

MAY DAYS 417

life, our real estate, is that amount of thought
which we have had, which we have thought out.
The ground we have thus created is forever pas-
turage for our thoughts. I fall back on to vis-
ions which I have had. What else adds to my
possessions, and makes me rich in all lands? If
you have ever done any work with those finest
tools, the Imagination and Fancy and Beason,
it is a new creation, independent of the world,
and a possession forever. You have laid up
something against a rainy day. You have, to
that extent, cleared the wilderness.

May 1, 1859. We accuse savages of wor-
shiping only the bad spirit or devil. Though
they may distinguish both a good and a bad,
they regard only that one which they fear, wor-
ship the devil only. We too are savages in
this, doing precisely the same thing. This oc-
curred to me yesterday, as I sat in the woods
admiring the beauty of the blue butterfly. We
are not chiefly interested in birds and insects,
for example, as they are ornamental to the earth
and cheering to man, but we spare the lives of
the former only on condition that they eat more
grubs than they do cherries, and the only ac-
count of the insects which the State encourages
is of the insects injurious to vegetation. We
too admit both a good and bad spirit, but we
worship chiefly the bad spirit whom we fear.

418 MAY DAYS

We do not think first of the good, but of the
harm things wiU do us. The catechism says
that the chief end of man is to glorify God and
enjoy him forever, which of course is applicable
mainly to God as seen in his works. Yet the
only accoimt of the beautiful insects, butterflies,
etc., which God has made and set before us,
which the State ever thinks of spending any
money on is the account of those which are in-
jurious to vegetation ! This is the way we
glorify God and enjoy him forever. . . .

We have attended to the evil, and said no-
thing about the good. This is looking a gift
horse in the mouth, with a vengeance. Chil-
dren are attracted by the beauty of butterflies,
but their parents and legislators deem it an idle
pursuit. The parents remind one of the devil,
but the children of God. Though God may
have pronounced his work good, we ask. Is it
not poisonous?

Science is inhuman. Things seen with a
microscope begin to be insignificant. So de-
scribed, they are monstrous, as if they should
be magnified a thousand diameters. Suppose
I should see and describe men and horses and
trees and birds as if they were a thousand times
larger than they are. With our prying instru-
ments we disturb the harmony and balance of
nature.

MAY DAYS 419

May 2, 1852. Reptiles must not be omit-
ted, especially frogs. Their croaking is the
most earthy sound now, a rustling of the scurf
of the earth, not to be overlooked in the awak-
ening of the year. . . .

The commonplaces of one age or nation make
the poetry of another. . . .

The handsome, blood-red, lacquered marks on
the edge and under the edge of the painted tor-
toise's shell, like the marks on a waiter, concen-
tric. Few colors like it in nature. This tor-
toise, too, like the guttata, painted on thin
parts of the shell, and on legs and tail in this
style, but on throat bright yellow stripes.
Sternum dull yellowish or buff. It hisses like
the spotted tortoise. Is the male the larger and
flatter, with depressed sternum? There is some
regularity in the guttata's spots, generally a
straight row on back. Some of the spots are
orange sometimes on the head. . . .

If you would obtain insight, avoid anat-
o my. . . .

May 2, 1855. The anemone is well named,
for see now the nemorosa amid the fallen brush
and leaves, trembling in the wind, so fragile.

May 2, 1859. A peetweet and its mate.
The river seems really inhabited when the peet-
weet is back. This bird does not return to our
stream until the weather is decidedly pleasant

420' MAY DAYS

and warm. He is perched on the accustomed
rock. His note peoples the river like the prat-
tle of children once more in the yard of a house
that has stood empty. . . .

I am surprised by the tender yellowish green
of the aspen leaves, just expanded suddenly,
even like a fire, seen in the sim against the dark
brown twigs of the wood, though these leaflets
are yet but thinly dispersed. It is very enliv-
ening.

I feel no jdesire to go to California or Pike's
'eak^but I often think at night, with inexpres-
sible satisfaction and yearning, of the arrow-
headiferous sands of Concord. I have often
spent whole afternoons, especially in the spring,
pacing back and forth over a sandy field, look-
ing for these relics of a race. This is the gold
which our sands yield. The soil of that rocky
spot of Simon Brown's land is quite ash-colored
(now that the sod is turned up) from Indian
fires, with numerous pieces of coal in it. There
is a great deal of this ash-colored soil in the
country. We do literally plough up the hearths
of a people, and plant in their ashes. The
ashes of their fires colors much of our soil.

May 2, 1860. I observed on the 29th that
the clams had not only been moving much, fur-
rowing the sandy bottom near the shore, but
generally, or almost invariably, had moved

MA Y .DA YS 421

toward the middle of the river. Perhaps it had
something to do with the low stage of the water.
I saw one making his way, — or perhaps it had
rested since morning, — over that sawdust bar
just below Turtle Bar, toward the river, the
surface of the bar being an inch or two higher
than the water. Probably the water falling left
it thus on moist land.

A crowd of men seems to generate vermin
even of the human kind. In great towns there
is degradation undreamed of elsewhere, gam-
blers, dog-killers, rag-pickers. Some live by
robbing or by luck. There was the Concord
muster of last September. I see still a well-
dressed man carefully and methodically search-
ing for money on the muster field far off across
the river. I turn my glass upon him and notice
how he proceeds. (I saw them searching in the
fall till the snow came.) He walks, regularly
and slowly, back and forth over the ground
where the soldiers had their tents, still marked
by the straw, with his head prone, and picking
in the straw with a stick, now and then turning
back or aside to examine something more closely.
He is dressed, methinks, better than the aver-
age man whom you meet in the streets. How
can he pay for his board thus? He dreams of
finding a few coppers, or perchance half a dime,
which have fallen from the soldiers' pockets.

422 MAY^DAYS

and no doubt he will find something of the kind,
having dreamed of it. Having knocked, this
door i^ill be opened to him.

May 3, 1841. We are all pilots of the most
intricate Bahama channels. Beauty may be the
sky overhead, but duty is the water underneath.
When I see a man with serene countenance in
garden or parlor, it looks like a great inward
leisure that he enjoys, but in reality he sails on
no summer's sea. This steady sailing comes of
a heavy hand on the tiller. We do not attend
to larks and bluebirds so leisurely but that con-
science is as erect as the attitude of the listener.
The man of principle gets never a holiday.
Our true character underlies all our words and
actions, as the granite underlies the other strata.
Its steady pulse does not cease for any deed of
ours, as the sap is still ascending in the stalk
of the fairest flower.

May 3, 1852. Five a. m. To Cliffs. A
great brassy moon going down in the west. . . .
Looking from the Cliff, now about six a. m.,
the landscape is as if seen in a mirage, the Cliff
being in shadow, and that in the cool sunlight.
The earth and water smell fresh and new, and
the latter is marked by a few smooth streaks.
The atmosphere suits the grayish-brown land-
scape, the still, ashy maple swamps, and now

MAY DAYS 428

nearly bare shrub oaks. The white pine, left
here and there over the sprout land, is never
more beautiful than with the morning light, be-
fore the water is rippled and the morning song
of the birds is quenched.

Hear the first brown thrasher, two of them.
They drown all the rest. He says, "cherruwit,
cherruwit, go ahead, go ahead, give it to him,
give it to him," etc. Plenty of birds in the
woods this morning. The huckleberry birds
and the chickadees are as niunerous, if not as
loud, as any. The flicker taps a dead tree
somewhat as one uses a knocker on a door in
the village street. In his note he begins low,
rising higher and higher.

Anursnack looks green three miles oflF. This
is an important epoch, when the distant bare
hills begin to s*how green or verdurous to the
eye. The earth wears a new aspect. Not
tawny or russet now, but green are such bare
hills. Some of the notes, the trills of the lark
sitting amid the tussocks and stubble, are like
the notes of my seringo bird. May these birds
that live so low in the grass be called the
cricket birds ? and does their song resemble that
of the cricket, an earth song?

Evening. The moon is full. The air is
filled with a certain luminous, liquid white
light. You can see the moonlight, as it were

424 MAY DAYS

reflected from the atmosphere, which some
might mistake for a haze, — a glow of mellow
light, somewhat like the light I saw in the af-
temoon sky some weeks ago, a« if the air were
a very thin but transparent liquid, not dry as
in winter, nor gross as in summer. The sky
has depth, and not merely distance. Going
through the depot field, I hear the dream frog
at a distance. The Uttle peeping frogs make a
background of sound in the horizon, which you
do not hear unless you attend. The former is
a trembling note, some higher, some lower,
along the edge of the earth, — an all-pervading
sound. Nearer, *it is a blubbering or rather
bubbling soimd, such as children, who stand
nearer to nature, can and do often make. • . .
The little peeper prefers a pool on the edge of
a wood, which mostly dries up at midsummer,
whose shore is covered with leaves, and where
there are twigs in the water, as where choppers
have worked. Theirs is a clear, sharp, ear-
piercing peep, not shrill, sometimes a squeak
from one whose pipe is out of order. . . . They
have much the greatest apparatus for peeping
of any frogs that I know. ... I go along the
side of Fairhaven Hill. The clock strikes dis-
tinctly, showing the wind is easterly. There is
a grand, rich, musical echo trembling in the air
long after the clock has ceased to strike, like a

MAY DAYS 425

vast organ, filling the air with a trembling
music, like a flower of sound. Nature adopts
it. The water is so cahn, the woods and single
trees are doubled by the reflection, and in this
light you cannot divide them as you walk along
the river. See the spearer's lights, one north-
east, one southwest, toward Sudbury, beyond
Lee's Bridge, — scarlet-colored fires. From
the hill, the river is a broad blue stream exactly
the color of the heavens which it reflects. Sit
on the Cliff with comfort in great-coat. All
the tawny and russet earth (for no green is seen
upon the ground at this hour) sending only this
faint, multitudinous sound (of frogs) to heaven.
The vast, wild earth. The first whip-poor-will
startles me; I hear three. Summer is coming
apace. Within three or four days the birds
have come so fast I can hardly keep the run of
them, — much faster than the flowers.

Sunday, May 3, 1867. A remarkably warm
and pleasant morning. A. m. To battle ground
by river. I heard the ring of toads at six
A. M. The flood on the meadows, still high,
is quite smooth, and many are out this still and
suddenly very warm morning, pushing about
in boats. Now, thinks many a one, is the
time to paddle or push gently far up or down
the river, along the still, warm meadow's edge,
and perhaps we may see some large turtles, or

426 MAY DAYS

musk-rats, or otter, or rare fish or fowl. It
will be a grand forenoon for a cruise, to ex-
plore these meadow shores and inundated maple
swamps which we have never explored. Now
we shall be recompensed for the week's confine-
ment in shop or garden. We will spend our
Sabbath exploring these smooth, warm vernal
waters. Up or down shall we go, — to Fair-
haven Bay and the Sudbury meadows, or to
Ball's Hill and Carlisle Bridge? Along the
meadow's edge, lined with willows and alders
and maples ; underneath the catkins of the early
willow, and brushing those of the sweet-gale with
our prow; where the sloping pasture and the
ploughed ground submerged are fast drinking
up the flood, what fair isles, what remote coast,
shall we explore ? what San Salvador or Bay of
All Saints arrive at? All are tempted forth,
like flies into the sun. All isles seem Fortunate
and blessed to-day, all capes are of Good Hope.
The same sun and calm that tempt the turtles
out tempt the voyagers. It is an opportunity
to explore their own natures, to float along their
own shores. The woodpecker cackles and the
crow blackbird utters his jarring chatter from
the oaks and maples. All well men and women
who are not restrained by superstitious custom
come abroad this morning, by land or water,
and such as have boats launch them and put

MAY DAYS 427

forth in search of adventure. Others, less free
or it may be less fortunate, take their station
on bridges, watching the rush of waters through
them and the motions of the departing voyagers,
and listening to the note of blackbirds from over
the smooth water. Perhaps they see a swimming
snake or a musk-rat dive, — airing and sunning
themselves there till the first bell rings. Up
and down the town men and boys that are un-
der subjection are polishing their shoes and
brushing their go-to-meeting clothes.

I sympathize not to-day with those who go to
church in newest clothes, and sit quietly in
straight-backed pews. I sympathize rather
with the boy who has none to look after him,
who borrows a boat and paddle, and in common
clothes sets out to explore these temporary ver-
nal lakes. I meet one paddling along under a
sunny bank, with bare feet and his pants rolled
up above his knees, ready to leap into the water
at a moment's warning. Better for him to
read Robinson Crusoe than Baxter's Saints'

The pine-warbler is perhaps the commonest
bird heard now from the wood sides. It seems
left to it almost alone to fill the empty aisles.

May 4, 1852. This excitement about Kos-
suth is not interesting to me, it is so superficial.

428 MAY DAYS

. . . Men nxe making speeches to him all over
the country, but each expresses only the thought
or the want of thought of the multitude. No
man stands on truth. They are merely banded
together as usual, one leaning on another, and
all together on nothing, as the Hindoos made
the world rest on an elephant, and the elephant
on a tortoise, and had nothing to put under the
tortoise. You can pass your hand imder the
largest mob, a nation in revolution even, and
however solid a bulk they may make, like a hail
cloud in the atmosphere, you may not meet so
much as a cobweb of support. They may not
rest, even by a point, on eternal foundations.
But an individual standing on truth you cannot
pass your hand under, for his foundations reach
to the centre of the universe. So superficial
these men and their doings. It is life on a leaf,
or a chip, which has nothing but air or water
beneath. I love to see a man with a tap-root,
though it make him difficult to transplant. It
is unimportant what these men do. Let them
try forever, they can effect nothing. Of what
significance are the things you can forget?

May 4, 1853. Cattle are going xfp country.
Hear the "tull-lull" of the white-throated spar-
row.

Eight A. M. To Walden and Cliffs. The
sound of the oven-bird. . . . The woods and

MAY DAYS 429

fields next the CHflFs now ring with the silver
jingle of the field sparrow, the medley of the
brown thrasher, the honest qui vive of the che-
wink, or his jingle from the top of a low copse
tree, while his mate scratches in the dry leaves
beneath. The black and white creeper is hop-
ping along the oak boughs, head downward,
pausing from time to time to utter its note, like
a fine, deUcate saw sharpening, and ever and
anon rises, clear over all, the smooth rich mel-
ody of the wood-thrush. Could that have been
a jay? I think it was some large, unconmion
woodpecker that uttered that very loud, strange,
cackling note. The dry woods have the smell
of fragrant everlasting. I am surprised by the
cool drops which now at ten o* clock fall from
the flowers of the amelanchier, while other
plants are dry, as if these had attracted more
moisture. The white pines have started. The
indigo bird and its mate, dark throat, light be-
neath, white spot on wings which is not de-
scribed, a hoarse note and rapid, the first two
or three syllables "twe, twe, twee," the last
being dwelt upon, or "twe, twe, twe, tweee,"
or as if there were an r in it, "tre," etc., not
musical. . . .

It is stated in the "Life of Humboldt " that he
proved "that the expression, 'The ocean reflects
the sky, ' was a purely poetical, not a scientifi-

430 MAY DAYS

cally correct one, as the sea is often blue when
the sky is almost totally covered with light,
white clouds." He used Saussure's cyanometer
even to measure the color of the sea. This
might probably be used to measure the intensity
of blue flowers, like lupines, at a distance.

May 4, 1855. A robin sings, when I in the
house cannot distinguish the earliest dawning
from the full moonlight. His song first adver-
tises me of the daybreak when I thought it was
night, as I lay looking out into the full moon-
light. I heard a robin begin his strain, and
yielded the point to him, believing that he was
better acquainted with the signs of day than I.

May 4, 1858. p. m. By boat to Holden
swamp. To go among the willows now and
hear the bees hum is equal to going some hun-
dreds of miles southward toward summer.

Go into Holden swamp to hear warblers.
See a little blue butterfly (or moth) (saw one
yesterday) fluttering about on the dry brown
leaves in a warm place by the swamp side, mak-
ing a pleasant contrast. From time to time
have seen the large Vanessa antiopa resting on
the black willows, like a leaf still adhering.
As I sit by the swamp side this warm summery
afternoon I hear the crows cawing hoarsely, and
from time to time see one flying toward the top
of a tall white pine. At length I distinguish a

MAY DAYS 431

hen-hawk perched on the top. The crow re-
peatedly stoops toward him, now from this side,
now from that, passing near his head each time,
but he pays not the least attention to it.

I hear the "veer-e, ver-e, ver-e" of the
creeper continually in the swamp. It is the
prevailing note there, and methought I heard a
redstart's note, but oftener than the last the
tweezer or screeper note of the party-colored
warbler, bluish above, throat and breast yellow
or orange, white on wings, and neck above yel-
lowish, going restlessly over the trees (maples,
etc.) by the swamp, in creeper fashion; and as
you may hear at the same time the true creeper's
note without seeing it, you might think this
bird uttered the creeper's note also.

The redwings, though here and there in
flocks, are apparently beginning to build. I
infer this from their shyness and alarm in the
bushes along the river, and their richer solitary
warbling.

May 4, 1859. p. m. To Lee's Cliflf on foot.
. . . Crossing the first Conantum field I per-
ceive a peculiar fragrance in the air (not the
meadow fragrance), like that of vernal flowers
or of expanding buds. The ground is covered
with the mouse-ear in full bloom, and it may
be that in part. It is a temperate southwest
breeze, and this is a scent of willows (flowers

482 MAY DAYS

and leaflets), bluets, violets, shad-bush, mouse-
ear, etc., combined, or perhaps the last chiefly.
At any rate, it is very perceptible. The air is
more genial, laden with the fragrance of spring
flowers. I, sailing on the spring ocean, getting
in from my winter voyage, begin to smell the
land. Such a scent perceived by a mariner
would be very exciting. I not only smell the
land breeze, but I perceive in it the fragrance
of spring flowers. I come out expecting to see
the redstart or the party-colored warbler, and
as soon as I get within a dozen rods of the Hol-
den wood I hear the screeper note of the tweezer
bird, that is, the party-colored warbler, which
also I see, but not distinctly. Two or three are
flitting from tree-top to tree-top about the
swamp there, and you have only to sit still on
one side and wait for them to come round.
The water has what you may call a summer rip-
ple and sparkle on it; that is, the ripple does
not suggest coldness in the breeze that raises it.
It is a hazy day; the air is made hazy, you
might fancy, with a myriad expanding buds.
After crossing the arrow-head fields, we see a
woodchuck run along and climb to the top of a
wall and sit erect there, — our first. It is al-
most exactly the color of the ground, the wall,
and the bare brown twigs altogether. When
in the Miles swamp field we see two, one chas-

MAY DAYS 438

ing the other, coming very fast down the lilac-
field hill, straight toward us, while we squat
still in the middle of the field. The foremost
is a small gray or slaty-colored one ; the other,
two or three times as heavy, and a warm tawny,
decidedly yellowish in the sun, a very large and
fat one, pursuing the first. . . . Suddenly the
foremost, when thirty or forty rods off, per-
ceives us, and tries, as it were, to sink into the
earth, and finally gets behind a low tuft of grass
and peeps out. Also the other (which at first
appears to fondle the earth, inclining his cheek
to it and dragging his body a little along it)
tries to hide himself, and at length gets behind
an apple-tree and peeps out on one side in an
amusing manner. This makes three that we
see. They are clumsy nmners, with their short
legs and heavy bodies, — run with an imdula-
ting or wabbling motion, jerking up their hind
quarters. They can run pretty fast, however.
Their tails were dark-tipped. They are low
when the animal is running.

Looking up through this soft and warm south-
west wind I notice the conspicuous shadow of
mid-Conantum ClifiF, now at three P. M., and
elsewhere the shade of a few apple-trees, trunks
and boughs. Through this warm and hazy
air the sheeny surface of the hill, now con-
siderably greened, looks soft as velvet, and

434 MAY DAYS

June is suggested to my mind. It is remark-
able that shadow should only be noticed now
when decidedly warm weather comes, though
before the leaves have expanded, that is, when
it begins to be grateful to our senses. The
shadow of the Cliff is like a dark pupil on the
side of the hill. The first shadow is as notice-
able and memorable as a flower. I observe
annually the first shadow of this cUff, when we
begin to pass from sunshine into shade for
our refreshment; when we look on shade with
yearning, as on a friend. That cliff and its
shade suggest dark eyes and eyelashes, and
overhanging brows. Few things are more sug-
gestive of heat than this first shade, though
now we see only the tracery of tree boughs on
the greening gra^s and the sandy street. This
I notice at the same time with the first humble-
bee; when the Hana palustris purrs in the
meadow generally; when the white willow and
the aspen display their tender green, full of yel-
low light; when the party-colored warbler is
first heard over the swamp; the woodchuck,
who loves warmth, is out on the hill-sides in
numbers; the jingle of the chipbird and the
song of the thrasher are heard incessantly; the
first cricket is heard in a warm, rocky place;
and that scent of vernal flowers is in the air.
This is an intenser expression of that same

MAY DAYS 435

influence or aspect of nature which I began to
perceive ten days ago, the same lAeferung.

These days we begin to think in earnest of
bathing in the river and to sit at an open win-
dow. Life out-of-doors begins.

It would require a good deal of time and pa-
tience to study the habits of woodchucks, they
are so shy and watchful. They hear the least
sound of a footstep on the ground, and are
quick to see also. One should go clad in a suit
somewhat like their own, the warp of tawny
and the woof of green, and then with painted
or well-tanned face he might lie out on a sunny
bank till they appeared.

We hear a thrasher sing for half an hour
steadily, a very rich singer, and heard one
fourth of a mile off very distinctly. This is
first heard commonly at planting time. He
sings as if conscious of his power.

May 4, 1860. p. m. To Great Meadows by
boat. . . . Walking over the river meadows
to examine the pools and see how much dried
up they are, I notice, as usual, the track of the
musquash, some five inches wide always, and
always exactly in the lowest part of the muddy
hollows connecting one pool with another, wind-
ing as they wind, as if loath to raise itself above
the lowest mud. At first he swam there, and
now as the water goes down he follows it stead-

436 MAY DAYS

ily, and at length travels on the bare mud, but
as low and close to the water as he can get.
Thus he first traces the channel of the future
brook and river, and deepens it by dragging his
belly along it. He lays out and engineers its
road. As our roads are said to follow the
track of the cow, so rivers in another period
follow the trail of the musquash. They are
perfect rats to look at, and swim fast against
the stream. When I am walking on a high
bank, I often see one swimming along within
half a dozen rods, and land openly, as if regard-
less of us. Probably, being under water at
first, he did not notice us.

Looking across the peninsula toward Ball's
Hill, I am struck by the bright blue of the
river (a deeper blue than the sky) contrasting
with the fresh yellow-green of the meadow (that
is, of coarse sedges just starting), and between
them a darker or greener green, next the edge
of the river, especially where that small sand-
bar island is, the green of that early rank river-
grass. This is the first painting or coloring in
the meadows. These several colors are, as it
were, daubed on, as on china-ware, or as dis-
tinct and simple as in a child's painting. I was
struck by the amount and variety of color after
so much brown.

As I stood there I heard a thumping sound,

MAY DAYS 437

which I referred to P , three fourths of a

mile off over the meadow. But it was a pigeon
woodpecker excavating its nest inside a maple
within a rod of me. Though I had just landed
and made a noise with my boat, he was too
busy to hear me, but now he hears my tread,
and I see him put out his head and then with-
draw it warily, and keep still while I stay there.

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD

[The time of year is Ang^t and September.]

I DO not remember any page which will tell
me how to spend this afternoon. I do not so
much want to know how to economize time as
how to spend it ; by what means to grow rich.
How to extract its honey from the flower of the
world — that is my every-day business. I am
as busy as a bee about it. Do I not impreg-
nate and intermix the flowers, produce rarer
and finer varieties, by transferring my eyes
from one to another? It is with flowers I
would deal. The art of spending a day! If
it is possible that we may be addressed, it be-
hooves us to be attentive. So by the dawning
or radiance of beauty are we advertised where
are the honey and the fruit of thought, of dis-
course and of action. The discoveries which
we make abroad are special and particular;
those which we make at home are general and
significant. My profession is to be always on
the alert, to find God in nature, to know his
lurking-places, to attend all the oratorios, the
operas in nature. Shall I not have words as

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 489

fresh as my thought? Shall I use any other
man's word? A genuine thought or feeling
can find expression for itself if it have to invent
hieroglyphics. It has the universe for tpye-
metal.

Since I perambulated the "bounds of the
town," I find that I have in some degree con-
fined myself (my vision and my walks). On
whatever side I look off, I am reminded of the
mean and narrow-minded men whom I have
lately met there. What can be uglier than a
country occupied by groveling, coarse, and low-
lived men ? — no scenery can redeem it. Hor-
nets, hyenas, and baboons are not so great a
curse to a country as men of a similar character.
It is a charmed circle which I have drawn about
my abode, having walked, not with God, but
the devil. I am too well aware when I have
crossed this line. . . .

The Price-Farm road is one of those ever-
lasting roads which the sun delights to shine
along in an August afternoon, playing truant;
which seem to stretch themselves with terrene
jest as the weary traveler travels them on ; where
there are three white sandy furrows (lirce)^ —
two for the wheels and one between them for
the horse, with endless green grass borders be-
tween, and room on each side for blueberries
and birches; where the walls indulge in freaks,

440 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD

not always parallel to the ruts, and golden-rod
yellows all the path, which some elms began to
border and shade over, but left off in despair,
it was so long ; from no point of which can you
be said to be at any definite distance from a
town. . • •

Old Cato says well, Patrem famUias ven-
dacem^ non emacem esse oportet. These Latin
terminations express, better than any English I
know, the greediness, as it were, and tenacity
of purpose with which the husbandman and
householder is required to be a seller and not a
buyer. With mastiff -like tenacity these lipped
words collect in the sense, with a certain greed.
Here comes a laborer from his dinner, to resume
his work at clearing out a ditch, notwithstand-
ing the rain, remembering, as Cato says, Per
ferias potuissefossas veteres tergeri. One would
think I were come to see if the steward of my
farm had done his duty.

The prevailing conspicuous flowers at present
[August 21] are the early golden-rods, tansy,
the life-everlastings, fleabane (though not for
its flower), yarrow (rather dry), hard-hack
and meadow - sweet (both getting dry), also
Mayweed, purple eupatorium, clethra, rhexia,
thoroughwort, Polygala sanguinea^ prunella
and dogsbane (getting stale), touch-me-not (less
observed), Canada snapdragon by roadsides,

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 441

purple gerardia, horsemint, veronica, marsh
speedwell, tall crowfoot (still in flower), also
the epilobium and cow-wheat.

Half an hour before sunset I was at Tupelo
cliff, when, looking up from my botanizing (I
had been examining the Ranunculus filiformis^
Conium maculatum^ Sium latifolium^ and the
obtuse Galium on the muddy shore), I saw the
seal of evening on the river. There was a
quiet beauty on the landscape at that hour
which my senses were prepared to appreciate.
When I have walked all day in vain under the
torrid sun, and the world has been all trivial,
as well field and wood as highway, then at eve
the sun goes down westward, and the dews be-
gin to purify the air and make it transparent,
and the lakes and rivers acquire a glassy still-
ness, reflecting the skies, the reflex of the day.
Thus, long after feeding, the diviner faculties
begin to be fed, to feel their oats, their nutri-
ment, and are not oppressed by the body's load.
Every sound is music now. How rich, like what
we like to read of South American primitive
forests, is the scenery of this river; what luxu-
riance of weeds, what depths of mud, along its
sides! These old ante-historic, geologic, ante-
diluvian rocks, which only primitive wading-
birds still lingering among us are worthy to
tread! The season which we seem to live in

442 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD

anticipation of is arrived. With wliat sober
joy I stand to let the water drip, and feel my
fresh vigor, who have been bathing in the same
tub which the muskrat uses, — such a medicinal
bath as only nature furnishes! A fish leaps,
and the dimple he makes is observed now.
Methinks that for a great part of the time, as
much as is possible, I walk as one possessing
the advantages of human culture, fresh from
the society of men, but turned loose into the
woods, the only man in nature, walking and
meditating to a great extent, as if man and his
customs and institutions were not. The cat-
bird or the jay is sure of your whole ear now;
each noise is like a stain on pure glass.

The rivers now, — these great blue subterra-
nean heavens reflecting the supernal skies and
red-tinged clouds — what unanimity between the
water and the sky, — one only a little denser
element than the other, — the grossest part of
heaven ! Think of a mirror on so large a scale !
Standing on distant hills you see the heavens
reflected, the evening sky, in some low lake or
river in the valley, as perfectly as in any mirror
that could be. Does it not prove how intimate
heaven is with earth ? We commonly sacrifice
to supper this serene and sacred hour. Our
customs turn the hour of sunset to a trivial
time, as to the meeting of two roads, — one com-

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 443

ing from the noon, the other leading to the
night. It might be well if our repasts were
taken out-of-doors, in view of the sunset and the
rising stars; if there were two persons whose
pulses beat together; if men cared for the
cosmos or beautj of the world; if men were
social in a rare or high sense ; if they associated
on rare or high levels; if we took with our tea
a draught of the dew-freighted, transparent
evening air; if with our bread and butter we
took a slice of the red western sky; if the
smoking, steaming urn was the vapor on a
thousand lakes and rivers and meads. The air
of the valleys at this hour is the distilled essence
of all those fragrances which during the day
have been filling and have been dispersed in the
atmosphere, — the fine fragrances, perchance,
which have floated in the upper atmospheres,
now settled to these low vales. I talked of
buying Conantum once, but for want of money
we did not come to terms. But I have farmed
it, in my own fashion, every year since.

I find three or four ordinary laborers to-day
putting up the necessary out-door fixtures for a
magnetic telegraph. They carry along a bas-
ket of simple implements, like traveling tinkers ;
and with a little rude soldering and twisting
and straightening of wire, the work is done, —
as if you might set your hired man with the

444 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD

poorest head and hands, with the greatest lati-
tude of ignorance and bungling, to this work.
All great inventions stoop thus low to succeed,
for the understanding is but little above the
feet. They preserve so low a tone, they are
simple almost to coarseness and commonplace-
ness. Some one had told them what he wanted,
and sent them forth with a coil of wire to make
a magnetic telegraph. It seems not so wonder-
ful an invention as a common cart or plough.

The buckwheat already cut [September 4]
lies in red piles in the field. In the Marlboro'
road I saw a purple streak like a stain on the
red pine leaves and sand under my feet, which
I was surprised to find was made by a dense
mass of purple fleas, like snow-fleas. And now
we leave the road and go through the woods and
swamps toward Boon's Pond, crossing two or
three roads, and by Potter's house in Stow,
still on the east side of the river. Beyond Pot-
ter's, we struck into the extensive wooded plain,
where the ponds are found in Stow, Sudbury,
and Marlboro'; part of it is called Boon's
Plain. Boon is said to have lived on or under
Bailey's Hill, at the west of the pond, and was
killed by the Indians, between Boon's and
White's pond, as he was driving his ox-cart.
The oxen ran off to the Marlboro' garrison-
house ; his remains have been searched for.

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 445

There were two hen-hawks that soared and cir-
cled for our entertainment when we were in the
woods on this plain, crossing each other's orbits
from time to time, alternating like the squirrels
in their cylinder, till, alarmed by our imitation
of a hawk's shrill cry, they gradually inflated
themselves, made themselves more aerial, and
rose higher and higher into the heavens, and
were at length lost to sight; yet all the while
earnestly looking, scanning the surface of the
earth for a stray mouse or rabbit. We saw a
mass of sunflowers in a farmer's patch; such
is the destiny of this large coarse flower, the
farmers gather it like pumpkins. We noticed
a potato-field yellow with wild radish. Knight's
new dam has so raised the Assabet as to make
a permanent freshet, as it were, the fluviatile
trees standing dead for fish-hawk perches, and
the water stagnant for weeds to grow in. You
have only to dam up a running stream to give
it the aspect of a dead stream, and in some
degree restore its primitive wild appearance.
Tracts are thus made inaccessible to man and
at the same time more fertile, — the last gasp
of wildness before it yields to the civilization
of the factory ; to cheer the eyes of the factory
people and educate them, — a little wilderness
above the factory.

As I looked back up the stream, I saw the

446 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD

ripples sparkling in the sun, reminding me of
the sparkling icy fleets which I saw last winter ;
and I thought how one corresponded to the
other, — ice waves to water ones ; the erect ice
flakes were the waves stereotyped. It was the
same sight, the same reflection of the sun
sparkling from a myriad slanting surfaces; at
a distance, a rippled water surface or a crys-
tallized frozen one. We climbed the high hills
on the west side of the river, in the east and
southeast part of Stow. I observed that the
walnut-trees conformed in their branches to the
slope of the hill, being just as high from the
ground on the upper side as the lower. I saw
what I thought a small red dog in the road,
which cantered along over the bridge, and then
turned into the woods; this decided me, this
turning into the woods, that it was a fox, the
dog of the woods. A few oaks stand in the
pastures, still great ornaments. I do not see
any young ones springing up to supply their
places, and will there be any a hundred years
hence? We are a young people and have not
learned by experience the consequences of cut-
ting off the forest. I love to see the yellow
knots and their lengthened stain on the dry,
unpainted pitch-pine boards on bams and other
buildings, as the Dugan house. The inde-
structible yellow fat, it fats my eyes to see it.

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 447

worthy for art to imitate, telling of branches in
the forest once.

From Strawberry Hill we caught the first,
and but a very slight, glimpse of Nagog Pond,
by standing on the wall. That is enough to
relate of a hill, methinks, — that its elevation
gives you the first sight of some distant lake.
The horizon is remarkably blue with mist; look-
ing from this hill over Acton, successive valleys
filled with this mist appear, and are divided by
darker lines of wooded hills. The shadows of
the elms are deepened, as if the whole atmos-
phere were permeated by floods of ether, that
give a velvet softness to the whole landscape;
the hills float in it; a blue veil is drawn over
the earth. Anursnack Hill had an exceedingly
rich, empurpled look, telling of the juice of the
wild grape and poke-berries. NoticecL a large
field of sunflowers for hens, in full bloom at
Temple's, now — at six p. m. — facing the
east. The larches in the front yards have
turned red; their fall has come; the Koman
wormwood (^mirosia artemisioefoliay is begin-
ning to yellow-green my shoes, intermingled
with the blue-curls in the sand of grain-fields.
Perchance some poet likened this yellow dust
to the ambrosia of the gods.

Do not the songs of birds and the fireflies go
with the grass, whose greenness is the best

448 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD

symptom and evidence of the earth's health or
youth? Perhaps a history of the year would be
a history of the grass, or of a leaf, regarding
the grass-blades as leaves. Plants soon cease
to grow for the year, unless they may have a
fall growth, which is a kind of second spring.
In the feelings of the man, too, the year is
already past, and he looks forward to the
coming winter. It is a season of withering;
of dust and heat; a season of small fruits and
trivial experiences. But there is an aftermath,
and some spring flowers bloom again. May
my life be not destitute of its Indian Summer !
I hear the locust still ; some farmers are sowing
their winter rye; I see the fields smoothly
rolled. I see others ploughing steep, rocky,
and bushy fields for rolling. How beautiful the
sprout-land! When you look down on it, the
light green of the maples shaded off with the
darker red, enlivening the scene yet more.
Surely this earth is fit to be inhabited, and
many enterprises may be undertaken with hope,
where so many young plants are pushing up.
Shall man then despair? Is he not a sprout-
land, too, after never so many searings and
witherings? If you witness growth and luxu-
riance, it is all the same as if you grew luxuri-
antly. The woodbine is red on the rocks. The
poke is a very rich and striking plant, cardinal

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 449

in its rank, as in its color. The downy seeds
of the groundsel are taking their flight; the
calyx has dismissed them and quite curled back,
having done its part.

When I got into Lincoln Eoad [September
11] r perceived a singular sweet scent in the air;
but, though I smelled everything around, I
could not detect it. It was one of the sweet
scents which go to make up the autumn, which
fed and dilated my sense of smell. I felt the
better for it. Methinks that I possess the sense
of smell in greater perfection than usual. How
autumnal is the scent of wild grapes, now by
the roadside I The cross-leaved polygala emits
its fragrance as at will; you must not hold it
too near, but on all sides and at all distances.
The pendulous, drooping barberries are pretty
well reddened. I am glad when the berries
look fair and plump.

Windy autumnal weather is very exciting
and bracin^g, clear and cold after a rain. The
winds roars loudly in the woods, the ground is
strewn with leaves, especially under the apple-
trees. The surface of the river reflecting the
sun is dazzlingly bright; the outlines of the
hills are remarkably distinct and firm, their
surfaces bare and hard, not clothed with a thick
air. I notice one red maple, far brighter than
the blossom of any tree in summer. What can

450 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD

be handsomer for a picture than our river scen-
ery now? First, this smoothly shorn meadow
on the west side of the stream, looking from the
first Conantum cliff, with all the swaths dis-
tinct, sprinkled with apple-trees casting heavy
shadows black as ink [9 A. M.], such as can be
seen only in this clear air, this strong light, —
one cow wandering restlessly about in it and
lowing; then the blue river, scarcely darker
than, and not to be distinguished from, the sky,
its 3^aves driven southward (or up the stream),
by the wind, making it appear to flow that way,
bordered by willows and button-bushes; then
the narrow meadow beyond, with varied lights
and shades from its waving grass, each grass-
blade bending south before the wintry blast, as
if looking for aid in that direction; then the
hill, rising sixty feet to a terrace-like plain cov-
ered with shrub-oaks, maples, and other trees,
each variously tinted, clad all in a livery of gay
colors, every bush a feather in its cap; and
further in the rear the wood-crowned cliffs,
some two hundred feet high, whose gray rocks
project here and there from amid the bushes,
with an orchard on the slope, and the distant
Lincoln Hills in the horizon. What honest,
homely, earth-loving houses they used to live
in, so low you can put your hands on the eaves
behind ! — the broad chimney, built for comfort,

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 451

no alto or basso relievo! The air is of crystal
purity, — both air and water so transparent,
the fisherman tries in vain to deceive the fish
with his baits. Walden plainly can never be
spoiled by the wood-chopper; for, do what you
will to the shore, there will still remain this
crystal well. The intense brilliancy of the red,
ripe maples, scattered here and there in the
midst of the green oaks and hickories on its
hilly shores, is quite charming. Alternating
with yellow birches and poplars and green oaks,
they remind one of a line of soldiers, red-coats
and riflemen in green, mixed together.

From Ball's Hill [September 26],' the mead-
ows, now smoothly shorn, have a quite impos-
ing appearance, so spacious and level. There
is a shadow on the sides of the hills surrounding
(it is a cloudy day), and where the meadow
meets them it is darkest. Now the sun in the
west is coming out, and lights up the river a
mile off so that it shines with a white light, like
a burnished silver mirror. The poplar-tree on
Miss Eipley's hill seems quite important to the
scene. The patches of sunlight on the meadow
look lividly yellow, as if fiames were traversing
it. It is a day for fishermen. The farmers are
gathering in their com. The climbing hemp-
weed {Mikania scandens) and the button-bushes
and the pickerel-weed are sere and flat with

452 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD

frost. We fell into the path printed by the
feet of the calves. The note of the yellow-ham-
mer is heard from the edges of the fields.

Sitting by the spruce swamp in Conant's
woods, I am reminded that this is a perfect day
to visit the swamp, with its damp, mistling,
mildewy air, so solemnly still. There are the
spectre-like black spruces hanging with usnea
Kchens, and in the rear rise the dark green
pines and oaks on the hillside, touched here
and there with livelier tints where a maple or
birch may shine, — this luxuriant vegetation
standing heavy, dark, sombre, like mould in a
cellar. . . .

Has one moon gone by unnoticed? It is
peculiarly favorable to reflection, — a cold and
dewy light m which the vapors of the day are
condensed, and though the air is obscured by
darkness it is more clear. Lunacy must be a
cold excitement, not such insanity as a torrid
sun on the brain would produce. But the moon
is not to be judged alone by the quantity of
light she sends us, but also by her influence on
the thoughts. No thinker can afford to over-
look her influence any more than the astronomer
can. Has not the poet his spring-tides and his
neap-tides, in which the ocean within him over-
flows its shores and bathes the dry land, — the
former sometimes combining with the winds of

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 458

heaven to produce those memorable high tides
which leave their mark for ages, when all Broad
Street is submerged and incalculable damage
done the common shipping of the mind? I
come out into the moonlit night where men are
not, as if into a scenery, ancientiy deserted by
men; the life of men is like a dream. It is
three thousand years since night has had pos-
session. Go forth and hear the crickets chirp
at midnight. Hear if their dynasty is not an
ancient one and well founded. I feel the anti-
quity of the night ; she merely repossesses her-
self of her realms, as if her dynasty were unin-
terrupted, or she had underlaid the day. No
sounds but the steady creaking of crickets, and
the occasional crowing of cocks. I go by the
farmer's houses and bams, standing there in
the dim light under the trees, as if they lay at
an immense distance, or under a veil. The
farmer and his oxen are all asleep, not even a
watch-dog is awake. The human slumbers;^
there is less of man in the world. To appreci-
ate the moonlight, you must stand in the shade
and see where a few rods or a few feet distant
it falls in between the trees. It is a "milder
day," made for some inhabitants whom you do
not see. I am obliged to sleep enough the next
night to make up for it (after being out) —
JEndymionis somnum dormire — to sleep an
Endymion's sleep, as the ancients expressed it.

454 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD

The fog on the lowlands (on the Comer Koad)
is never still. It now advances and envelops
me as I stand to write these words before sun-
rise, then clears away with ever noiseless step.
It covers the meadows like a web, — I hear the
clock strike three. The light of Orion's belt
seems to show traces of the blue day through
which it came to us. The sky at least is lighter
on that side than in the west, even about the
moon. Even by night the sky is blue and not
black, for we see through the veil of night into
the distant atmosphere. I see to the plains of
the sun where the sunbeams are reveling. The
crickets' song by the causeway is not so loud at
this hour as at eveninsr, and the moon is eet-
ting low. I hear a wagon cross on one of the
bridges leading into the town. I smeU the ripe
apples many rods off beyond the bridge. Will
not my townsmen consider me a benefactor if I
conquer some realms from the night, if I can
show them that there is some beauty awake
while they are asleep ; if I add to the domains
of poetry ; if I report to the gazettes anything
transpiring in our midst worthy of man's atten-
tion ? I will say nothing here to the disparage-
ment of Day, for he is not here to defend him-
self.

I hear the farmer harnessing his horse and
starting for the distant market, but no man

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 456

harnesses himself and starts for worthier enter-
prises. One cock-crow tells the whole story of
the farmer's life. I see the little glow-worms
deep in the grass by the brookside. The moon
shines dim and red, a solitary whip-poor-will
sings, the clock strikes four, a few dogs bark,
a few more wagons start for market, their faint
rattling is heard in the distance. I hear my
owl without a name, the murmur of the slow
approaching freight-train as far off perchance
as Waltham, and one early bird. The round
red moon is disappearing in the west. I detect
a whiteness in the east. Some dark, massive
clouds have come over from the west within
the hour, as if attracted by the approaching
sun, and have arranged themselves ray wise
across the eastern portal as if to bar his coming.
They have moved, suddenly and almost unob-
servedly, quite across the sky (which before was
clear) from west to east. No trumpet was heard
which marshaled and advanced the dark masses
of the west's forces thus rapidly against the
coming day. Column after column the mighty
west sent forth across the sky while men slept,
but all in vain.

The eastern horizon is now grown dun-col-
ored, showing where the advanced guard of the
night are already skirmishing with the vanguard
of the sun, — a lurid light tinging the atmos-

456 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD

phere there, — while a dark-columned cloud
hangs imminent over the broad portal un-
touched by the glare. Some bird flies over,
making a noise like the barking of a puppy (it
was a cuckoo). It is yet so dark that I have
dropped my pencil and cannot find it. The
sound of the cars is like that of a rushing wind ;
they come on slowly ; I thought at first a morn-
ing wind was rising.

The whip-poor-wiUs now begin to sing in ear-
nest, about half an hour before sunrise, as if
making haste to improve the short time that is
left them. As far as my observation goes they
sing for several hours in the early part of the
night, are sUent commonly at midnight,—
though you may meet them sitting on a rock or
flitting silent about, — then sing again at just
before sunrise. It grows more and more red in
the east (a fine-grained red under the overhang-
ing cloud), and lighter too, and the threatening
clouds are falling off to southward of the sun's
passage, shrunken and defeated, leaving his
path comparatively clear. The increased light
shows more distinctly the river and the fog.
The light now (five o'clock) reveals a thin film
of vapor like a gossamer veil cast over the lower
hills beneath the cliffs, and stretching to the
river, thicker in the ravines, thinnest on the
even slopes. The distant meadows to the north

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 457

beyond Conant's grove, full of fog, appear like
a vast lake, out of wUch rise Anursnadi and
Ponkawtasset like wooded islands. And all
the farms and houses of Concord are at the
bottom of that sea. So I forget them, and
my thought sails triumphantly over them. I
thought of nothing but the surface of a lake, a
summer sea over which to sail; no more would
the voyager on the Dead Sea who had not the
Testament think of Sodom and Gomorrah and
cities of the plains I only wished to get off to
one of the low isles I saw in the midst of the
sea (it may have been the top of Holbrook's
elm) and spend* the whole summer day there.
Meanwhile the redness in the east had dimin-
ished and was less deep. And next the red
was become a sort of yellowish or fawn-colored
light, and the sun now set fire to the edges of
the broken cloud which had himg over the hori-
zon, and they glowed like burning turf.

It is remarkable that animals are often obvi-
ously, manifestly related to the plants which
they feed upon or live among, as caterpillars,
butterflies, tree-toads, partridges, chewinks. I
noticed a yellow spider on a golden-rod, — as
if every condition might have its expression in
some form of animated being. I have seen the
small mulleins in the fields for a day or two as
big as a ninepence ; rattlesnake grass is ripe ; a

458 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD

stalk of purple eupatorium, eight feet, eight
inches high, with a large convex corymb (hem-
ispherical) of many stories, fourteen inches
wide, and the width of the plant, from tip of
leaf to tip of leaf, two feet, the diameter of its
stalk one inch at the ground. Is not disease
the rule of existence? There is not a lily-pad
floating in the river but baa been riddled by
insects. Almost every tree and shrub has its
gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament,
and "hardly to be distinguished from its fruit.
If misery loves company, misery has company
enough. Now at midsummer find me a perfect
leaf or fruit. The difference is not great be-
tween some fruits in which the worm is always
present and those gall- fruits which were pro-
duced by the insect. The prunella leaves have
turned a delicate claret or lake color by the
roadside [September 1]. I am interested in
these revolutions as much as in those of king-
doms. Is there not tragedy enough in the au-
tumn? The pines are dead and leaning red
against the shore of Walden Pond (which is
going down at last), as if the ice had heaved
them over. Thus by its rising it keeps an open
shore. I found the succory on the railroad.
May not this and the tree primrose, and other
plants, be distributed from Boston on the rays
of the railroads? The feathery-tailed fruit of

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 469

tlie fertile flowers of the clematis are conspicu-
ous now. The shorn meadows looked of a liv-
ing green as we came home at eve, even greener
than in spring. This reminds me of the
^^fenum cordum^^^ the aftermath, ^'sicilimenta
de pratis^^* the second mowing of the meadow,
in Cato. I now begin to pick wild apples.

I walk often in drizzly weather, for then the
small weeds (especially if they stand on bare
ground), covered with rain-drops like beads,
appear more beautiful than ever, — the hyperi-
cums, for instance. They are equally beauti-
ful when covered with dew, fresh and adorned,
almost spirited away in a robe of dew-drops.
The air is filled with mist, yet a transparent
mist, a principle in it which you might call flia-
vor, which ripens fruits. This haziness seems
to confine and concentrate the sunlight, as if
you lived in a halo, — it is August. Some
farmers have begun to thresh and to winnow
their oats. Not only the prunella turns lake,
but the Hypericum virginicum in the hollows by
the roadside, a handsome blush, a part of the
autumnal tints. Kipe leaves acquire red blood.
Eed colors touch our blood and excite us as well
as cows and geese. We brushed against the
Polygonum arcuatum^ with its spikes of red-
dish white flowers, — a slender and tender plant
which loves the middle of dry and sandy, not

460 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD

much traveled roads, — to find that the very
stones bloom, that there are flowers we iiidely
brush against which only the microscope re-
Teals. The dense fog came into my chamber
early, freighted with light, and woke me. It
was one of those thick fogs which last well
into the day. The farmers' simple enterprises !
They improve this season, which is the dryest,
their haying bemg done, and their harvest not
begun, to do these jobs, — bum brush, build
walls, dig ditches, cut tui*f, also topping corn
and digging potatoes. Sometimes I smell these
smokes several miles off, and, by their odor,
know it is not a burning building, but withered
leaves and the rubbish of the woods and
swamps. Methinks the scent is a more oracu-
lar and trustworthy inquisition than the eye.
When I criticise my own writing I go to the
scent, as it were. It reveals what is concealed
from the other senses. By it I detect earthi-
ness.

The jays scream on the right and left as we
go by, flitting and screaming from pine to pine.
I hear no lark sing at evening as in the spring,
only a few distressed notes from the robin.
I saw a pigeon - place on George Hey wood's
cleared lot, with the six dead trees set up for
the pigeons to alight on, and the brush-house
close by to conceal the man. I was rather

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 461

Startled to find such a thing going now in Con-
cord. The pigeons on the trees looked like
fabulous birds, with their long tails and their
pointed breasts. I could hardly believe they
were alive and not some wooden birds used for
decoys, they sat so still, and even when they
moved their necks I thought it was the effect
of art. I scare up the great bittern in the
meadow by the Heywood brook near the ivy.
He rises buoyantly as he flies against the wind,
and sweeps south over the willow, surveying.
I see ducks or teal flying silent, swift, and
straight, the wild creatures! The partridge
and the rabbit, they stiU are sure to thrive like
true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions
occur. If the forest is cut off, many bushes
spring up which afford them concealment. In
these cooler, windier, crystal days the note of
the jay sounds a little more native.

I found on the shores of the pond that sin-
gular willow-herb in blossom, though its petals
were gone. It grows up two feet from a large
woody horizontal root, and drops over to the
sand again, meeting which, it puts a myriad
rootlets from the side of its stem, fastens itself
and curves upward again to the air, thus span-
ning or looping itself along. The bark, just
above the ground, thickens into a singular cel-
lular or spongy substance, which at length ap-

462 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD

pears to crack nearer the earth, giving that part
of the plant a winged or somewhat four-sided
appearance. The cadncous pclygala is faded
in cool places almost white ; knot-grass or door-
grass {Polygonum aviculare) is still in bloom.
I saw the lambkill in flower (a few fresh blos-
soms), beautiful bright flowers, as of a new
spring with it, while the seed-vessels, appar-
ently of this year, hung dry below. The ripen-
ing grapes begin to fill the air with their fra-
grance.

I hear the red-wing blackbirds and meadow-
larks again by the river-side [October 5], as if it
were a new spring. They appear to have come
to bid farewell. The birds seem to depart at
the coming of the frost, which kills the vegeta-
tion and directly or indirectly the insects on
which they feed. As we sailed up the river,
there was a pretty good-sized pickerel poised
directly over the sandy bottom close to the
shore, and motionless as a shadow. It is won-
derful how they resist the slight current, and
remain thus stationary for hours. He no doubt
saw us plainly on the bridge, — in the sunny
water, his whole form distinct and his shadow,
— motionless as the steel-trap which does not
spring till the fox's foot has touched it. In this
drought you see the nests of the bream on the
dry shore. The prinos berries are quite red,

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 463

the dog-wood by the Comer Koad has lost every
leaf, its branches of dry greenish berries hang-
ing straight down from the bare stout twigs, as
if their peduncles were broken. It has assumed
its winter aspect, — a Mithridatic look. The
black birch is straw-colored, the witch-hazel is
now in bloom. The little conical burs of the
agrimony stick to my clothes ; the pale lobelia
still blooms freshly, and the rough hawk-weed
holds up its globes of yellowish fuzzy seeds, as
well as the panicled. The reclining sun, falling
on the willows and on the water, produces a
rare soft light I do not often see, — a greenish
yellow. The milk- weed seeds are in the air; I
see one in the river which a minnow occasionally
jostles. The butternuts have shed nearly all
their leaves, and their nuts are seen black
against the sky. The white-ash has got its
autumnal mulberry hue. It contrasts strangely
with the other shade-trees on the village street.
It is with leaves as with fruits, and woods,
and animals, and men, — when they are mature
their different characters appear. The elms are
generally of a dirty or brownish yellow now.
Some of the white pines have reached the acme
of their fall; the same is the state of the pitch-
pines. The shrub-oaks are almost uniformly
of a deep red.

The reach of the river between Bedford and

464 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD

Carlisle, seen from a distance, has a singularly
ethereal, celestial, or elysian look. It is of a
light sky blue, alternating with smoother white
streaks, where the surface reflects the light
differently, like a milk-pan full of the milk of
Valhalla, partially skimmed; more gloriously
and heavenly fair and pure than the sky itself.
We have names for the rivers of Hell, but none
for the rivers of Heaven, imless the milky way
may be one. It is such a smooth and shining
blue, like a panoply of sky-blue plates.

Some men, methinks, have found only their
hands and feet. At least, I have seen some
who appeared never to have found their heads,
but used them only instinctively. What shall
we say of those timid folks who carry the prin-
ciple of thinking nothing, and doing nothing,
and being nothing, to such an extreme? As
if in the absence of thought, that vast yearn-
ing of their natures for something to fill the
vacuum made the least traditionary expression
and shadow of a thought to be clung to with in-
stinctive tenacity. They atone for their pro-
ducing nothing by a brutish respect for some-
thing.

INDEX

AcBB, an, M long mearare, 76.

Actoo (Mass.), 166, 447.

Agriculture, the taisk of Americans,
281-283.

Agrimony, the, 463.

Alphonse, Jean, and Falla of Mont-
morend, 47 ; quoted, 112.

America, superiorities of, 269-275.

American, money in Quebec, 29;
the, and government, 102.

Anacreon, quoted, 133, 136.

Andropogons or Beard-Grasses, 313-
317.

Anemone, the, 419.

Ange Gardien Parish, 61: church
df,57.

Anffler's Souvenir, the, 146.

AnimalB, related to plants on which
they feed, 457.

Anursnack, 423 ; Hill, 447, 457.

Apple, history of the tree, 356-367 ;
the wild, 367-369 ; the crab-, 369-
371 ; growth of the wild, 371-378 ;
cropped by oatUe, S72-376; the
fruit and flavor of the, 378-385 ;
beauty of the, 386-387; naming
of the, 387-389; last gleaning of
the, 389-392 ; the frosen-, thawed,
892-394; dying out of the wild,
884-396.

Apple-howling, 366.

Arpent, the, 75.

Arrow-headiferous sands of Con-
cord, 420.

Ashbumham (Mass.), 3 ; with a bet-
ter house than any in Canada,
124.

Ash-trees, 7.

Aspen leaves, the gn&a of, 420.

Assabet, the, 166, 445.

Audubon, John James, reading, 127 ;
134, note ; 138, note.

Autumn f olii^, brightness of, 306-
308 ; weather and landscape, 449-
452 ; the tragedy of, 458.

AUTUiUfAL TiHTS, 305-366.

Bailey's Hill, 444.

Ball's Hill. 426, 436, 461.

Bartram, William, quoted, 244.

Bathing feet in bnxMLs, 172 ; at son-
set 442.

Bayfield's chart. Captain, 114, 116.

Beach-plums, inhmd, 246.

Beard -Grasses, Andropogons cr,
313-317.

Beauport (Que.), and le Chemin ds^
37; getting lodgings in, 43-46;
church in, 86 ; Seigniory of, 119.

Beauprd, Seigniory of the C6te de,
60.

Bedford (Mass.), 463.

** Behind, how spring appearfaig,**
135.

Bellows Falls (Yt.), 6.

Birch, yellow, 7 ; black, 463.

Birds and mountains, 182.

Bittern, booming of tlie, 137 ; the
great, 461.

Blueberries, and milk, supper of,
177; 411.

Bluebird, the, 136.

BoboUnk, the, 139.

BodsBUS, quoted, 389.

Bolton (Mass.), 168.

Bonsecours Market (Montreal), 13L

Books on natural history, reading,
127-129.

Boon's Pond, 444.

Boots, Canadian, 63.

Boston (Mass.), 3, 8, ^0.

Boucher, quoted, 113.

Boucherville (Que.), 24.

Bouchette, Topographical Descrip-
tion of the Canadaa, quoted, 50,
62, 78, 79, 110, 114, 117.

Bout de I'Isle, 24.

Boylston (Mass.), 170.

Brand's Popular Antiquities quoted,
365.

BraverY of science, the, 131, 132.

Buckwheat, 444.

Burlington (Vt.), 8, 123.

466

INDEX

Burton, Sir Richaid Franda, 279,

280
Butterfly, beauty of the, 417,418;

a blue, 430.
Buttemut-troe, 7, 463.

Cabs, Montreal, 22; Quebec, 86.

CadiUce-worma, 206.

Caen, Emery de, quoted, 64.

Caleche, the (see Cabe), 86.

CSanada, i^paiently older than the
Uuited States, 100; population
of, 101 ; the French in, a naticm
of peasants, 102.

Canada East, 49.

Cmiadente^ Iter^ and the word, 12&

Canadian, French, 11; horses, 41;
women, 42 ; atmosphere, 42 ; love
of neighborhood, 62, 63; houses,
64, 73; clothes, 66; salutations,
68 ; yeffetables aud trees, 69 ;
boots, ^ ; tenures, 78, 79.

Cap aux Oyes, 116.

Cane, a straight and twisted, 226,
226.

Cape Diamond, 26, 60; signal-gun
on, 106 ; the view from, 109.

Cape Boi^^, 26, 118.

Cape Roaer, 114.

Cape Tourmente, 60, 110, 119.

Carlisle (ICass.), 464.

Carlisle Bridge, 426.

Cartier, Jacques, 9; and the St.
lAwrence, 111, 112 ; quoted, 120,
121 ; 122.

Catbird, the, 412.

Cato Major, quoted, 440.

Cattle show, men at, 226.

Cemetery of fallen leaves, 331.

Chaleur, the Bav of, 112.

Chalmers, Dr., in criticism of Cole-
ridge, 398.

Chambly (Que.), 13.

Champlain, Sunuel, quoted, 9;
whales in map of, 9, 113.

Charlesbourg (Que.), 110.

Charlevoix, quoted, 66, 113.

Chateau Richer, church of , 67 ; 60 ;
lodgings At, 73, 85.

Chaucer, Geoffrey, quoted, 196, 196.

Chaudi^re River, the, 26 ; Falls of
the, 86, 87.

Cheap men, 36.

Cherry-stones, transported by birds,
230.

Chewink, the, 429.

Chickadee, the. 134, 423.

Chien, La Riviere au, 69.

Chipping-sparrow, the fork-tailed,
410, 411.

Churches, Catholic and P rot eafa mt,

16-17; roadside, 67.
Claire Fontaine^ La, 32.
Clams, moving, 420.
Clothes, bad-weather, 34 ; Canadian,

66.
Clouds, the moon and, 405.
Colors, names and joy of, 336-337 ;

in a May landscape, 436.
Conant's woods, 4^.
Cooantum, 414, 431, 433, 443.
Concord (Mass.), 3, 6, 8 ; History of,

quoted, 141; 163, 183, 186, 420,

Concord River, the, 141, 170.
Connecticut River, 6, 177, 180, 181.
Coureurs de boU^ and de rUqueSf

63.
Creeper, the, 412, 429, 431.
Crickets, the creaking of, 133.
Crook-neck squash seeds, Quebec,

108.
Crosses, roadside, 66.
Crow, the, 134 ; not imported from

Europe, 139; 430.
Crystalline botany, 155, 166.
CuJm, bloom in the, 310.
Cyanometer, a, 414, 430.

Darby, William, quoted, 116.
Daybreak, 464-467.

DATS AND NiOHTS IN CONCOBO, 438-

464.
BogB in harness, 36, 37.
Dog-wood, 463.
Door-grass, 462.

Drake, Sir Francis, quoted, 400.
Dubartas, quoted, translation of

Sylvester, 404.
Ducks, 136.

•

** Each summer sound," verse, 138.
East Msin, Liabrador and, health in

the words, 128.
Easterbrooks Country, the, 367, 372.
Edda, the Prose, quoted, 368.
Eggs, a master in cooking, 76.
Ehn, the, 322, 323, 338, 339, 463.
Emerson, George B., quoted, 246.
English and French in tlie New

World, 83, 84.
Entomology, the study of, 132, 133.
Evelyn, John, quoted, 381.
Everlasting, fragrant, 429.
Ex Oriente Lux ; ex Occidente PntXy

271.
Experiences, the paucity of men's,

295,296.
Eyes, the sight of different man's,

350-364.

INDEX

467

FafrliaT«ii Bay, 426.

Fairhaven Hill, 411. 424.

Fallen Leaves, 324-^2.

Falls, a drug of, 72.

Finch, the, 139 ; the to-wee, 412.

Fish, spearing, 147, 149-151.

Fisher, the pickerel, 220, 221.

Fishes, described in Massachusetts
Report, 146.

Fish-hawk, the, 136.

FitchburgCMass.), 3.

FitzwiUiam (N. H.), 4.

Fleas, purple, 444.

Flicker, the, 137, 412, 423.

Flowers, conspicuous August, 440.

Fog, 454, 460.

Foreign country, quickly in a, 38.

Forests, nations preserved by, 281.

Fortifications, ancient and modem,
95, 96.

Fox, the, 144 ; mistaken for a dog,
446.

French, difSculties in talking, 43-45,
67 ; strange, 62 ; pure, 65 ; in the
New World, English and, 83, 84;
in Canada, 101, 102 ; the, spoken
in Quebec streets, 107.

Frogs, peeping, 412, 413, 414, 424,
425; 419.

Froissart, good place to read, 28.

Frost-smoke, 203.

Fruits at the Isles of Richelieu, 19.

Fur Countries, inspiring neighbor-
hood of the, 130.

Garget, Poke or, 311-313.

Geese, first flock of, 135.

Gesner, Konrad von, quoted, 391.

Goldfinch, the, 139.

Gosse, P. A., *' Canadian Natural-
ist," 113.

Government, too much, 102.

Grass, a year's history of the, 448.

Great Brook, 167.

Great Fields, the, 315.

Great Meadows, 435.

Great River, the, or St. Lawrence,
110, 111, 113.

Green Mountains, the, 6, 7, 124, 177,
180.

Grey, the traveler, quoted, 116, 117.

Grippliug for apples, 379.

Groton (Mass.), 170, 186.

Groundsel, the, 449.

Gulls, 136.

Gun, a signal, 105.

Gnyot, Arnold, 115; quoted, 116,
270.

Harvard (Mass.), 185, 186.

Hawk, the, 134 ; and nest and eggs,

415.
Hawk-weed, 463.

Head, Sir Francis, quoted, 58, 271.
Heights of Abraham, 26.
Hen-hawk, the, 431, 445.
Herrick, Robert, 366.
Hickory, the, 324.
Highlanders in Quebec, 30-32, 33, 34,

'* His steady sails he never furls,'*

134.
Hoar-frost, 155, 156.
Hochelaga, 14, 120, 121, 12a
Holden Swamp, 430.
Homer, quoted, 221.
Hoosao Mountains, 180.
Hop, culture of the. 167.
Horses, Canadian, 41.
Hortua Hccus, nature in winter a,

218, 219.
House, the perfect, 187.
Houses, Canadian, 54, 73 ; American

compared with Canadian, 124.
Huckleberry bird, the, 412, 423.
Humboldt, Alex, von, 114, 116,

429.
Hunt House, the old, 247.
Hypericum, the, 469.

" I see the civil sun drying earth's
tears," verse, 147.

Ice, the booming of, 215.

Ice formations in a river-bank, 157,
158.

Ignorance, Society for the Diffusion
of Useful, 293.

Imitations of Charette drivers, Yan-
kee, 123.

" In two years' time 't had thus,"
verse, 372.

Indian Summer, the, of life, 448.

Indigo bird, the, 429.

Indoors, living, 254-256.

Inn, inscription on wall of Swedish,
173.

Invertebrate Animals, Mass. Re-
port on, quoted, 159.

Jay, the, 134, 243, 244, 429, 460.
Jesuit Relations, quoted, 119.
Jesuits' Barracks, the, in Quebec,

29.
Joel, the prophet, quoted, 395, 396.
Jonson, Ben, quoted, 277.
Josselyn, John, quoted, 1.

Elalm, Swedish traveler, quoted,
26, 37, 48, 81 ; on sea-plants near
Quebec, 115.

468

INDEX

Keene {S. H.) Street, 4; beadB

like, 5.
Blent, the Duke of, property of, 46.
Khaled, quoted, 410.
Kmington Peak, 6.
Knot-grus, 462.
Knowledge, the dow growth of, 161 ;

Society for the Diffusion of Useful,

298; true, 294.
Kossuth, the excitement about, 427,

428.

Labrador and Bast Main, health in

the words, 128.
Lachine Railroad Depot, the, 123.
Lake, a woodland, in winter, 213,

214.
Lake Champlain, 7-9.
Lake St. Peter, 119, 121.
Lalemant, Hierosme, quoted, 27.
Lambkill, the, 462.
Lancaster (Mass.), 168, 170, 183.
Lakdlobo, Ths, 187-198.
Landlord, qualities of the, 188-198.
La Prairie (Que.), 12, 13, 22, 123.
Lark, the, 134, 136.
Lead, ndn of, 32.
Leaves, Fallen, 324-332; Scarlet

Oak 341-344.
Lincoln (Slass.*), 346, 347; Boad,

the, 449.
IdnnsBus, quoted, 272.
Longueil (Que.), 24.
Lord Sydenham steamer, the, 89,

118.
Lorette (Que.), 110.
Loudon, John Claudius, quoted, 241,

246, 368, 381.
Ludlow (Vt.), 6.

HcGunooh*8 Oe<^;raphioal Diction-
ary, quoted, 61.

McTaggut, John, quoted, 116.

MacTavish, Simon, 121.

Map, drawing, on kitchen table, 74 ;
of Canada, inspecting a, 118.

Maple, the red and sugar, 7 ; the
Red, 317-322, 326 ; the Sugar, 320,
332-341.

Matane, Paps of, 114.

MaraSon, the river, 116.

Marlborough (Mass.), 262; road,
the, 444.

Meadow-larks, 462.

Merrimack River, the, 181.

Michaux, Andr€, quoted, 269.

Michaux, Francois Andr^, quoted,
271 ; 320, 370.

Midnight, exploring the, 397.

Milk-weed seeds, 463.

Miller, a crabbed, 86.

Milne, Alexander, quoted, 236, 237.

Mingan settlemoats, the, in Labra-
dor, 114.

Mississippi, disooveiy of the. 111,
112 ; extent of the, 116 ; a pano-
rama of the, 274.

Monadnock, 4, 175, 178, 180.

Montcalm, Wolfe and, monument
to, 90, 91.

Montmorend County, 76, 77; the
babitans of, 79-84.

Montmorenci, Falls of, 36, 46-48.

Montreal (Que.), 10, 13 ; described,
17-19; the mixed population of,
21 ; from Quebec to, 120 ; and its
surroundings, beautiful view of,
122 ; the name of, 122.

MooMLioHT, Night avd, 397-409.

Moonlight, reading by, 178; 423,
424 ; influence of, 452.

Moonshine, 399.

Moore, Thomas, 122.

Morning, winter, early, 200-203;
landscape, early, 422.

Morton, Thomas, 1.

MouutHoUy (Vt.),6.

Mount Royal (Montreal), 13.

Mountains, the use of, 181, 182; and
plain, influence of the, 186, 186.

Mouse-ear, the, 431.

Musketaquid, Prairie, or Concord
River, 141.

Musk-rat, the, 141-144.

Musquash, track of the, 435.

Mussel, the, 169.

Myrtle bird, the, 414.

Nagog Pond, 447.

Names, poetry in, 24; of places,

French, 70, 71 ; men's, 289-291 ;

of colors, 336, 336.
Nashua River, the, 170, 186.
Natural Histobt or Massacru-

8KTT8, 127-162.

Natural history, reading boc^
127, 129.

Nature, health to be found in, '129 ;
man's work the most natural,
compared with that of, 146 1 the
hand of, upon her children, 163 ;
different methods of work, 154;
the . civilixed look of, 172 ; the
winter purity of, 204; a hortus
Hocus in, 218, 219; men's rela- 7
tion to, 296 ; finding God in, 438. V

Nawshawtuck Hill, 384.

New Liverpool Cove, 26.

New things to be seen near home,
259.

INDEX

469

Niebnhr, Barthold Georg, quoted,

356.
Niepoe, Joseph Nlcdptaore, quoted,

292.
Night and Moonlight, 397-409.
Night, on WachuseU, 179; the

aenaes in the, 403; out of doora,

453 454.
Nobacot Hill, 372, 374.
Norumbega, 111.
** Not unconcerned Wachuaett rears

hia head," verse, 176.
Notre Dame (Montreal), 13 ; a viait

to, 14-17.
Notre Dame des Angea, Seigniory

of, 119.
Nurae-plants, 236.
Nut-hatch, the, 134.
Nuttall, Thomas, quoted, 136, 137,

138, note, 411.

Oak, auoceeding pine, and vice
vena, 227, 229, 231 ; The Scarlet,
341-360; leavea. Scarlet, 341-344.

Ogilby, Aiuerica of 1670, quoted,
113.

"Old Marlborough Road, The,"
verae, 263.

Orinoco, the river, 116.

Orleana, lale of, 61, 61.

Orainora, 111.

Orteliua, Tfieatrum OrbU Terra-
rum, 111.

Oaaian, quoted, 408.

OtUwa River, the, 60, 116, 122.

Oui, the repeated, 76.

Palladiua, quoted, 361, 378.

Partridge, the, 461.

Patent office, aeeds aent by the,

248,249.
Peetweet, the, 419.
Penobscot Indiana, use of Musk-rat

skins by, 143.
Perch, the, 151.
Philip's War, King, 183.
PhoBbe, the, 138.
nckerel, a motionleaa, 462.
Pickerel fisher, the, 220, 221.
Pica, no, in Quebec, 106.
Pigeons, 460, 461.
Pilots, all men, 422.
Pinbina, the, 59.
Pine, oak aucceeding, and vice

versa, 227, 229, 231 ; family, a,

297-299 ; white and pitch, 463.
Pine-cone, atrippedby squirrels, 240.
Pine-warbler, the, 427.
Plain and mountain, life of the, 185,

180.

Plants on Gape Diamond, Quebec,
33; and animals which feed on
them, 457.

Plate, tiie river, 116.

Plattsburg (N. T.), 8.

Plicipennes, 208.

Pliny, the Elder, quoted, 369.

Plover, the, 138.

Point Levi, by ferry to, 86 ; a night
at, 88; 110.

Pointe anx Trembles, 24, 26.

Poke or Garget, the, 311-313, 448.

Pdygala, the, 462.

Polygonum arcuatum, 469.

PommeUet, 48.

Ponkawtaaset, 457.

Potherie, quoted, 66.

Prairie River, Musketaquid or, 14L

Price Farm road, the, 439.

Princeton (Mass.), 176.

Prinos berries, the, 462.

Purana, the, quoted, 402.

Purple Grasses, The, 308-317.

Quail, a white, 134, note.

Quebec (Que.), 3, 24, 25 ; approach
to, 26 ; harbor and populati(m of,
27 ; mediflBvallsm of, 28, 31 ; the
citadel, 33-36; 96-100; fine view
of, 61 ; reentering, through St.
John*a Gate, 86; lighta m the
lower town, 88 ; landing i^^n at,
89 ; walk round the Upper Town,
89-94; the walls and gates, 91, 92:
artillery barracks, 92; mounted
guns, 94 ; restaurateurs, 106, 106 ;
scenery of, 108-110; origin of
word, 109 ; departure from, 118.

Rabbit, the, 461.

Rainbow in Falls of the Chaudi^,

87.
Raleigh, Sir Walter, quoted, 404.
Redwing blackbirds, 462.
Redwings, 431.

Reports, Mass., of slight value, 160.
Return of Spring, verse, 135.
Rhexia, 809.
Richelieu, Isles of, 119.
Richelieu or St. John's River, 10.
Richelieu Rapids, the, 26.
Richter, Jean Paul, quoted, 406.
River, the flow of a, 217.
River^bank, ice formations in a, 167a

158.
Rivera of Hell and Heaven, names

for, 464.
Riviere du Sud, the, 114.
Riviere more meandering than

River, 70.

470

INDEX

Boberral, 8ieiird«, 118, 119.
Bobin, the, 134 ; a white, 134, note ;

414,430.
Bobin Hood Ballads, quoted, 184,

254.
Bock-Maple, the, 325.
BouM*s Point (N. Y.), 9.
Bowlandaon, Mrs., 183.

St. Anne, the Falls of, 49 ; Chorch
of La Bonne, GO ; lodgings in vil-
lage of, 61-63; interior of the
church of La Botme, 63, 64 ; Falls
of, described, 65-69.

St. Charles Birer. the, 37.

St. Helen's Island (Montreal), 13.

St. John's (Que.), 10-12.

St. John's Baver, 10.

St. Lawrence Biver, 13,14; cottages
along the, 25, 26 ; banks of the,
above Qaebec, 49, 50 ; breadth of,
61; or Great Biver, 111-118; old
maps of. 111, 114 ; compared with
other rivers. 111, 114-117.

St. Maurice Biver, 116.

Saguenay Biver, 112, 116.

Salutations, Ganadiui, 58.

Sault a la Puce, Bavi&re do, 60,
71.

Sanlt Norman, 13.

Sault St. Louis, 13.

Saunter, derivation of the word,
251,252.

Scarlet Oak, The, 341-350.

Scent, autumn, 449; more trust-
woithy than sight, 460.

School-house, a Canadian, 67.

Science, the braveij of, 131, 132.

Scotchman dissatisfied with Canada,

S93.
ptures, Hebrew, inadequacy of,

regarding winter, 223, 1S24.
Sea-plants near Quebec, 115.
Seeds, the transportation of, by

wind, 228 ; by bvds, 229-231 ; by

squirrels, 233-244; the vitalitiy of ,

245-248.
Seein|r, individual, 350-354.
Selemtes, 397.
Seven Islands, the, 114.
Shadows, the coming of, in spring,

433,434.
Sheep, a load of, 23.
Shirley (Mass.), 170.
Shruboaks, 463.
Sign-language, 75, 76.
SiUery (Que.), 26.
Silliman, Benjamin, quoted, 121.
Skating, 216.
Smoke, winter morning, 201 ; seen

from a hilttop, 212; tte nutSLoi^

460.
Snake, the, 152.
Snipe-shooting grounds, 60.
Snow, 221, 222; not recognised in

Hebrew Scriptures, 223.
Snow-bird, the, 134. •
Society, health not to be found in.

129.
Soldiers, English, in Canada, 11,

19-21 ; in Quebec, 29-33, 98, 99.
Solomon, quoted, 357.
" Sometimes I hear the Teery*a

darion," verse, 138.
Song-sparrow, the, 136.
Sounds, winter morning, 200, 202.
Sorel Biver, 9, 10.
Sparrow, the white-throated, 428;

the field, 429.
Spaulding's Farm, 297.
Spearing fish, 149-15L
Speech, country, 168.
Spending a day, the art of, 438.
Spirit, worshiping a bad, 417, 418.
Spring, on the Concord Biver, 147^

149.
Squash, the large yellow, 249.
Squirrcd, a red, burjring nuts, 233,

234 ; with nuts under snow, 239 ;

pine-cones stripped by the, 240;

with filled cheek-pouches, 243.
Stars, the, 403-405.
Sterling (Mass.), 172, 183.
Stillriver Tillage (Mass.), 185.
Stillwater (Mass.), 184.
Stillwater, the, 172, 174.
Stow (Mass.), 166, 444, 446.
Strawberry Hill, 447.
Succession of Forest Trees, The,

225-250.
Sudbury (Mass.), 372, 425, 426, 444.
Sugar-Maple, The, 332-341.
Sunday, keeping, 427.
Sunflowers, 447.
Sunrise, 456, 457.
Sunset, a remarkable, 302-304; on

the river, 441.
Supper, an interruption of sunsets,

442,443.
Swamp, a day to visit the, 452.

Tsmias, the stewaxd squirrel, 243,
Tavern, the gods* interest in the,

187; compared with the church,

the, 198.
Telegraph, workers on the, 443,

Tenures, Canadian, 78.
'*The needles of the pine,** verse,
163.

INDEX

471

"The river swelletb more and
more," verse, 148.

" The sluggish smoke curls up from
some deep dell," verse, 201.

Theophrastus, 359.

Thomson, James, quoted, 306.

Thoreau, Hen#y David, leaves Con-
cord for Canada, 25th Saptember,
1850, 3; traveling outfit of, 38-
41 ; leaves Quebec for Montreal
on return trip, 118 ; leaves Mon-
treal for Boston, 123; total ex-
pense of Canada excursion, 125;
walk from Concord to Wachusett
and back, 163-186 ; observation of
a red squirrel, 233, 234; experi-
ence withr government squash-

8000 y £nu3»

**Thou dusky spirit of the wood,"
verse, 139.

Thought, the absence of, 464.

Thrasher, the brown, 423, 429, 436.

Three Rivers (Que.), 25, 115.

Three-o'clock courage, 255.

Toad, ring of the, 415, 416, 425.

Tortoise, colors on a, 419.

Trappers, 142.

Traverse, the, 114.

Traveling outfit, the best, 38-41.

Trees, Canadian, 68; the sugges-
tions of, 154 ; the natural plant-
ing of^^27-248 ; a town's need of,
334, 337-341 ; for seasons, 339.

Tree-tops, things seen and found on,
300,301.

Troy (N. H.), 4.

Tupelo Cliff, 441.

Turtle, the snapping, 162.

** Upon the lofty Elm-tree sprays,"
Terse, 138.

Yal Cartier (Que.), 110.

Vanessa antiopa, 430.

Yarennes, the church of, 121.

Yeery, the, 138.

Yegetation, the type of all growth,

157.
Yergennes (Yt.), 8.
Yermin generated by men, ASi,
Yillage, a continuous, 51, 62 ; the,

261 ; trees in a, 337-341.
Yiolet, the first, 411.
Yirgfl, readmg, 169, 176.

Wachusett, a view of, 169 ; range,
the, 170; ascent of, 174; birds
or vegetation on summit of, 175 ;
i^ght on,- 178; an obeervatory,

Walden (Mass.), 428.

Walden Pond, 458.

Walls, Quebec and other, 91.

Walk to Wachositt, A, 163-186.

Walkers, the order of, 263.

WAUEnro, 261-304.

Walks, not on beaten paths, 262;
the direction of, 265-268 ; adven-
turous, 350 ; by night, 401 ; in
drizzly weather, 459.

Waltham (Mass.), 455.

Warblers, 430, 431, 432.

Watatic, 168, 181.

"We pronounce thee happy, Ci-
cada," verse, 133.

Wealth, true, 416, 417.

West, walking towards the, 266<-
269; generiu tendency towarda
the, 269-276.

Westmoreland, etymology of, 6.

Whales in the St. Lawrence, 112,
113.

'* When Winter fringes every
bough," verse, 215.

'* Where they once dug for money,"
verse, 263.

Whip-poor-will, the first, AS3S ; sing«
ing before sunrise, 466, 466.

White-ash, the, 465.

White's Pond, 444.

Whitney, Peter, quoted, 383.

"Whoa," the ciying of, to man-
kind, 288.

Wild Applbs, 366-396.

Wildness, the necessity of, 276-289 ;
in literature, 283-285 ; in domes-
tic animals, 287-289.

William Henry (Que.), 26.

Willow, Golden, leaves, 327.

Willow Bay, 416.

WUlow-herb, the, 461.

WnrrsB Walk, A, 199-224.

Winter, warmth in, 206 ; the woods
in, 206, 207 ; nature a hortus sie-
ctu in, 218, 219 ; as represented in
the almanac, 222 ; ignored in He-
brew Revelation, 223; eveniiu^,
224.

Witch-hazel, 463.

"With frontier strength ye stand
your ground," verse, 163.

" Within the circuit of this plodding
life," 127.

Wolfe and Montcalm, monument to,
90 91.

Wolfe's Cove, 26.

Women, Canadian, 42.

Woodbine, 3, 4, 338, 448.

Wood-chopper, writer to be repre-
sented as a, 222.

472

INDEX

Woodchucks, 432, 433, 435.
Woodman, hut and work of a, 210-

212.
Woodpecker, the, 412, 429; the

pigeon, 414, 437.
Wood-thrush, the, 429.

Woods In winter, the, 206, 207.
Wordsworth, reading, 176.
Wormwood, the Roman, 447.

TAnoEB iH Gahada, a, 1-126.
** Yorrick," the, 138, note.

min^'i^^

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